Readers continue to debate the coaching salaries at Ohio State
Unfortunately, we don't have room in the print edition for all of the great reader feedback we're getting. For more of the letters, go to Dispatch.com. Have more comments, questions? Reach out to me at bwhite1@dispatch.com.
On Ohio State coaching salaries
To Brian: Your own OSU beat writer Joey Kaufman has it right in his insightful article on Brian Hartline. Coach Hartline says, "I try to decide what's a good play call in each situation and go from there." It remains to be determined whether coach Ryan Day will delegate play-calling duties to him. It remains to be sort of a trial run. I believe many of your readers would love to get a 60% pay raise to $1.6 million per year for a trial run. Give us a break!
As far as defensive coordinator Jim Knowles, did he receive his 3% raise for total defensive schemes or his linebacker coaching? Should there have been a decrease of approximately 1516% in pay for the defensive schemes in the Michigan and Georgia games? Just asking, as it would have saved the athletic department some of the money it borrowed from the university. Larry Hood, Worthington
To the editor: Ohio State women's basketball was amazing this year. They made it to the Elite Eight with an exciting brand of basketball. Coach Kevin Mcguff, despite the success of the team, is compensated substantially less annually than coach Ryan Day and coach Chris Holtmann, with Day cashing out for $9.5 million compensation, Holtmann $3.5 million compensation and Mcguff $1.05 million. While all three salaries are obscene given that in November 2022 Columbus had over 73 thousand people on governmental financial assistance and over 1.4 million on government food assistance, at least the pay for big-time coaches for men's and women's teams should be in the same stratosphere compared to the less fortunate among us.
Michael Oser, Columbus
To Brian: I am no expert on the matter, but I spent a total of nine years on coach Tressel's and Nick Saban's staffs in the 2000s. Successful programs depend on recruiting the best players, then developing them to reach their full potential. Recruiting has changed drastically in the past 15 years, and so has hiring and keeping outstanding coaches.
The first thing head coaches look at is the recruiting history of the candidate, then how good a coach they are. If your package is not better than your competition, you lose the best candidates. When your coaches leave, you lose continuity and have to find and retrain a coach to fit your system. To be the best, you have to hire the best. It's as simple as that. It is the world we live in.
Maybe we should be asking how members of Congress become multimillionaires on a salary of $174,000 a year, instead of why universities pay coaches so much money.
Todd Alles
To the editor: I don't think readers realize the value of coaches. Brian Hartline was about to be swooped up by about 25 colleges or 12 NFL teams, so giving these guys raises in this day and age when each team is making about $75 million off the TV contract, they can afford it. And remember the new contract for TV, and remember USC and UCLA are coming.
Mike Dooley
On the Blue Jackets
To the editor: Having just read Rob Oller's article, "Lost Souls," I see part of the problem in regard to the Blue Jackets. There is no accountability. CBJ upper management doesn't hold those under them accountable, and the media, until very recently, is uninterested in holding current management accountable. To suggest that the ghost of Doug Maclean's leadership is somehow even partially responsible for the current embarrassment in Nationwide Arena contributes to the problem. Jarmo Kekalainen has been in charge for 10 years. He is the owner of all that is currently wrong with the Blue Jackets. For years, all I heard from the media was what a great eye for talent Jarmo brings to the organization. Even a couple years ago when the defense was systematically dismantled, all the press coverage was telling the fans not to worry. Jarmo had drafted more fine defensemen than the team could possibly need. We are seeing Jarmo's players on the ice now, not Doug Maclean's. Ten years of draft picks have amounted to what? On those few occasions when a draft pick has appeared to be a player who could actually make a positive impact, his time in Columbus has been short-lived. He becomes a restricted free agent, and Jarmo's “we hold hammer; they'll have to take what we give them and like it” negotiating method alienates the players, and they move on.
He protected Matt Calvert because he had another bottom-six forward he judged to be a better option to give away in the expansion draft. The guy (William Karlsson), who the judges of talent in Columbus had playing 8-10 minutes a game on the fourth line, immediately scores 40+ goals in Las Vegas. And then Columbus doesn't even bother resigning Calvert the following years. What a joke.
He handed out a big, fat contract to a goalie who had proven himself for all of part of one season. Now the organization is back to having a Steve Masontype situation. The goalie can't find his first-year effectiveness. The CBJ can't trade him because no other team wants to spend $5 million per year for a save percentage in the 80s. And while the team is in desperate need of defense, they are forced to trade their best goalie and best defenseman because they have no cap space to keep them.
But the fans should not worry. The draft is just around the corner and Columbus has a lot of great picks penciled in on their draft card.
Paul Burchett, Pickerington
On college basketball
Dear Editor: With college men's basketball programs' successes being so driven by the effectiveness of their head coaches, why is it that we never hear of any effort to hire the best coach available regardless of gender? I don't know if Dawn Staley, Tara Vanderveer, Muffett Mcgraw or any other of a number of great female basketball coaches would want to coach a men's team, but why don't we ever read anything about someone trying to do this?
Coaching is teaching is an accurate saying we hear all the time. Are not many of the best teachers women? Are women not some of the best leaders there are? Basketball fundamentals do not change depending on the gender of the players.
Is sexism even stronger than all of the money and increased enrollment that comes from success on the court in March? Must be.
Doug Shoemaker, Westerville