Texas lawmakers criticize Rick Barnes raise

[arieshorn]

Well well seems the longhorn faithful aren't the only ones. lol
LINK

 

[Seattle4UT]

It is ridiculous. I'd love to see UT give Coach G (women's bball) a raise too. That would be a field day!

 

[SectionThree]

Predictable responses from politicians. Isn't their money but
they'll always have ideas about how to spend others. Same
with that Statesman bunch. Bohls and Golden couldn't wait
to pile on, but tell me who wouldn't take the raise among that
slimy group and/or justify same? They pontificated about the
lack of education money in the state as somehow being
related. Well, since several nations in Africa are hurting
why isn't Golden forking over most of his salary? It is
always amusing to watch people decide how OTHER
people ought to act, spend their money, support their
causes, etc. Pathetic.

 

[Statalyzer]

The market has spoken. It's simple.

The whole "lack of state budget money" argument is silly - so the state reps are basically saying "Hey, I can't even solve my own budget problems, so why does he get a raise and I don't?" Well, you kind of answered your own question there.

 

[caesarscott]

they should just cut UT's budget by another 200k. if they have money to waste on Rick Barnes, they dont need more of the taxpayer's money

 

[Statalyzer]

Two separate budgets.

 

[bystander]

You guys are such homers... is it really that far over your head? It is arrogant to give Barnes a raise. He didn't deserve it. Period. He should be worried about his job not getting rewards.

 

[blonthang]

Consider this.

UT-Austin is among the leaders, maybe at the top, of licensed crap that people buy --- jerseys, caps, etc.

Why do kids around the country buy Longhorn adorned stuff? They see their sports heroes on TV, want to be like them, and buy something Longhorn.

It doesn't hurt to have the NBA's leading scorer referred to as a "former University of Texas Longhorn" or Aldridge, or Gibson, or Augustine, or Ford, or Pittman, or James, etc.

Now, certainly, Barnes isn't on the NBA court playing, but neither did he screw up the career paths of those fine young men.

If one of the obligations of a college professor (or coach) is to help young students in their quest for future success in whatever field they chose, then it could be argued that Barnes has done a good job.

And that indirectly returns a tidy sum of money to UT's coffers (not the athletic department) in the sale of Longhorn merchendise.

Certainly football rules in this department --- see Vince Young's Rose Bowl performance against both UM and USC --- and the apparent tick up of sales nationwide of everything Longhorn.

But Durant has got to be helping the cause a bit, even though his real notariety has been NBA play, though he did pretty good at Austin in his one year.

How many kids around the country say: "Hey, my cousin went to UT and talked over and over about how great his mathematics professor was there. I'm going out right now and buy me a UT baseball cap and a Professor Smith jersey."

 

[Statalyzer]

bystander, the "homer" posts you are referring to aren't even addressing if he deserved it based on the season we had. They are countering bad arguments that claim that giving raises to coaches is irresponsible in and of itself.

 

[blonthang]

Another article, kind of an expansion by Buck Harvey of the SA Express on the "Kevin Durant" effect on Barnes' value to UT coffers:
The Link

As an aside, didn't Buck Harvey write for the AAStatesman years ago?

 

[accuratehorn]

Maybe the lawmakers of Texas could learn the effectiveness of having dedicated funds to use on certain departments, instead of claiming that Rick Barnes' salary has anything to do with the education funding problem in the state.
But the political climate today is all about deflecting attention from the real problems and leaping all over trivial sideshow items.

 

[Bob in Houston]

The bottom line in hoops has gone up from $1.26 mil nine years ago to $6.7 mil last year. That's up more than 500 percent in nine years. As the head of the program, Barnes is going to get a piece of the rock.

The market for coaches is going up. Mark Turgeon, who has made one S16 in his career, and not at A&M, now has a better financial package than Barnes, even with the raise.

Regardless, it's obvious that DeLoss Dodds has the man he wants in charge of basketball.

 

[SchertzHorn]

Amen Accuratehorn! As a teacher (who thankfully has a job) who has seen those around him lose theirs due to funding I am more upset with lawmakers even having the time to criticize this move. It is simply a ploy to take eyes off of the real issue at hand. Education is losing jobs, good teachers and great programs. These teachers of these programs have families too, and without going too west mall with this, the bottom line is this has NOTHING to do with the state's budget problems. This is not the same fund and is a completely self sufficient program because of the work he has done. This has been created by those criticizing this move and it upsets my stomach to hear them even have the courage to criticize the raise. I'll stop now....

 

[charloscarlies]

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