College coaches have offered to take pay cuts, but not the millionaires

The majority of college coaches are doing their part to help out where they can by taking pay cuts. The millionaires, however, aren’t pitching in.

Millions of Americans are unemployed right now as the coronavirus pandemic continues to sweep the nation. The world of education has already been hit hard with spring sports getting canceled this past season and some fall sports moving to a conference-only schedule (though the Big Ten is the only one to have implemented this at the moment).

Nothing is for certain right now through these trying times, but some collegiate coaches are trying to help out where they can, and that’s by taking a pay cut.

You would think when I utter those words that it’d be the big timers like Dabo Swinney of Clemson football, John Calipari of Kentucky basketball, Nick Saban of Alabama football, and Chris Beard of Texas Tech basketball who would have been offering up part of their salary to help out their universities and employers.

Which college coaches have offered to take a pay cut?

According to a recent article from ESPN, however, that hasn’t been the case.

"NEARLY HALF OF major college football and men’s basketball coaches have taken voluntary pay cuts in response to the financial crisis facing higher education because of the coronavirus pandemic, but most of the highest-paid coaches have not, an ESPN survey found.Eight of the 10 top-paid football coaches and at least five of the 10 highest-paid men’s basketball coaches — all of whom earn more money than anyone else at their schools — have not taken cuts."

Fortunately, there have been some top tier coaches who have agreed to take a pay cut during these trying times. Kansas basketball head coach Bill Self and Michigan football head coach John Harbaugh fall into that category, each agreeing to take a ten percent pay cut. It’s good to see these two doing what they can to help right now.

It’s a bad look for these higher-paid coaches not to take any sort of pay cut at all or to not donate some of their money to help out Universities struggling to meet their bottom lines. Especially in the case of coaches at public universities where funding comes from states struggling with budget shortfalls as they deal with the pandemic. At least in the cases of coaches like UCLA’s Chip Kelly and Mick Cronin, they agreed to take pay cuts, but it hasn’t been approved yet.

Many of these men are millionaires and would be even with pay cuts. Drastic times call for drastic sacrifices. Or just any sacrifice at all?