Most top college coaches haven’t taken pay cut

Most of the highest-paid college football coaches have avoided the voluntary salary reductions that have swept Power Five programs, according to an ESPN survey.

ESPN surveyed the 65 Power Five conference schools along with 10 other prominent basketball programs. At 33 of the 75 schools, at least one of either the football and basketball coach had agreed to have his pay cut to deal with the financial crisis brought on by the pandemic.

But eight of the 10 football coaches with the largest salaries during the 2019-20 academic year have not had their salaries reduced, including Clemson’s Dabo Swinney ($9.3 million) and Alabama’s Nick Saban ($8.9 million), the two highest-paid coaches in the the sport. Among basketball coaches half of the 10 highest paid have not taken cuts, including Kentucky’s John Calipari, the nation’s top paid coach.

Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh, who made $7.5 million (tied for third highest with Texas A&M’s Jimbo Fisher), is the highest-paid football coach to take a pay cut, agreeing to a one-year, 10% reduction.

Among basketball coaches, Duke Mike Krzyzewski’s is the highest paid to agree to a cut. The Blue Devils coach made $7.3 million last year and was part of a round of salary reductions at the school, where the highest-paid employees had their pay trimmed from 2.5% to 10%.

Auto racing: Dale Earnhardt Jr. and a pilot struggled to open a crashed airplane’s wing emergency exit as the aircraft began to burn and fill with smoke before he and his family managed to escape from the main door, according to new details about the 2019 accident released by the National Transportation and Safety Board.

Baseball: Major League Baseball will play crowd noise from its official video game through ballpark sound systems during games. Stadium sound engineers will have access to around 75 different effects and reactions, according to MLB, which has provided teams with crowd sounds captured from “MLB The Show.” ... Angels RHP Justin Anderson, who was 3-0 with a 5.55 ERA last season, will have Tommy John surgery . ... RHP Brandon Woodruff will start the Brewers’ opener against the Cubs on July 24.

NFL: The NFL Players Association wants players tested daily for coronavirus, one of the outstanding points in discussions with the NFL over health and safety protocols as the start of training camp draws near . ... Bengals WR A.J. Green signed his one-year, $17.9 million contract after the deadline passed for agreeing to a long-term deal. The club used its franchise tag on Green, who missed all last season with an ankle injury.

NHL: The Lightning’s Andrei Vasilevskiy was selected as a finalist for the Vezina Trophy for the third consecutive season. He joins the Jets’ Connor Hellebuyk and the Bruins’ Tuukka Rask as finalists for the league’s top goalie.