The Money Just Rolls In

The one thing that really jumped out at me from your column is the idea that the head football coach has to be the chief fundraiser. Not at Michigan! That's the difference between the flagship programs and a WVU. The athletic dept and the development office do the fundraising.

The head coach just has to pick a charity and show up for it (and, to Lloyd Carr's credit, he has been a leader in the fundraising for the new Mott's Children's Hospital).*

The recent post on the departure of Rich Rodriguez brought an interesting comment that call for clarification of what is meant here with calling the football coach the chief fundraiser. The dance and procedure is not one where the coach is going to meetings and passing the hat for contributions. Chief fundraiser does mean that as the front man for the team the head coach is the uber-saleman that gets the season ticket holder to fork over a contribution to buy season tickets, gets the more casual fan to tune in on Saturday or gives the confidence to the big time boost to pleas millions for new facilities. The dance between coach takes place at all levels of college sports from a Division III school up to flagship institions.

How often do we see that a coach is getting fired because the alumni, the best source for money, are unhappy with the on the field results. The UM faithful may find themselves tested if there new coach has sold them more than he can deliver. The most expensive element of the UM and Rodriguez relationship may be time although with the price both have paid they may find that they have a great deal in common with the folks in South Bend.

*The full comments have be posted here.