Wayne Laravee's Back Page Report

Kevin picked up on this story a few days ago. Today Wayne Laravee focused on the story for his Back Page Radio report. In addition, Jerry Bader talked about this on his show today.

Jerry played Wayne's blurb all over again. The upshot of it all is the question: do coaches of successful NCAA coaches deserve the large salaries they get? My first hearing of the report was as I was in & out of sleep this morning and it started off with me believing Wayne was all for Jim Calhoun [Coach of the University of Connecticut's men's basketball team] giving back some of his salary, but in closing Wayne clarified and unequivocally supported Jim Calhoun and other coaches. In short, there is an agreement in place and NCAA athletics is about the only things that actually bring in more money to the universities than they cost.

First off, I do have some quibbles. Wayne is the Keith Olbermann of Wisconsin sports (perhaps not so bad, but he makes it very obvious he is a lefty) and took a shot at President Bush during his monologue — we don't need to infect sports with that stuff Wayne! In addition, Wayne's tendency to take a neutral stance even broadcasting Packer games had me off balance. That is one thing that annoys me about Wayne, him getting excited during a Packer game does nothing to tell me if the play is beneficial or detrimental to the Packers, I have to wait for Larry's groan or excitement. You see, if I am busy and paying attention to something else I can not follow the broadcast closely. Anyway.

In the end Wayne was correct in his assessment. Coaches are worth it.

Some years I was listening to WImP radio and they had a phonestorm session. They asked people to call in and briefly give their ideas on getting our state budget under control. One guy called in to suggest the elimination of UW Athletics. When the host pointed out UW Athletics actually made money of the UW the caller snorted and said to close it down anyway!