I am more of a fan on the productiveness approach (which isn’t mutually exclusive with the marketable approach you brought up), and that is why I don’t think Tuberville should be getting a raise. Texas Tech went 11-2 in 2008, 9-4 in 2009, and now that Tuberville is the coach, 8-5. I do not see an improvement in the performance and that’s why I don’t believe he deserves the raise when the university is freezing faculty’s salaries.

I disagree with Texas Tech’s decision to favor the athletic department over the academics in terms of salaries. To answer your question on whether it’s ok to raise the salary if Texas Tech had won the championship, I believe that would be a judgment call for the university based on their financial situation and has to be done very carefully so the wrong message isn’t sent to the students.

For the question on the ethical dimension on faculty discrepancy, I believe that performance is the most important factor. I disagree with the raise for Coach K during the faculty and staff wage freeze, but Coach K has year in and year out bring excellence to the Duke basketball program, and to me, that makes it more OK than Tuberville’s raise, who hasn’t shown to done much to the Texas Tech program. As for the professors, I think better professors should be paid more (in fact, I think professors should be paid more in general), and I think many universities should put a heavier emphasis on academics.

Related to this, and to your question about how to measure faculty impact, should faculty who published a certain number of papers have been granted a raise while others weren’t (based on performance)? Or should it be, as the argument with coaches usually is, a more market-based approach – faculty who had outside offers were granted raises (and possibly other percs) while those who didn’t pursue or receive such offers were not? In this kind of approach (which is quite common), loyalty doesn’t get rewarded, but shopping oneself, or, as coaches tend to do, threatening to do so or being blessed by having the media do it for them, is rewarded. No one to whom pay matters would state, as soon as they are given a contract or granted tenure – “I’m where I’ve always wanted to be and I intend to stay for life.” And anyone who does say that is not believed. (Recall Roy Williams holding the pep rally at Kansas when he decided to turn down UNC the first time…)

So, just to help you on the local angle, Duke also froze faculty and staff salaries for the past two years. And Coach K has received pay raises during at least part of that time. Here’s a quote from the newsandobserver.com blog post posted June 8, 2010:

“Submitted by andycurliss on 06/08/2010 – 09:25
Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski’s pay nearly tripled over four recent seasons — rising from about $1.3 million to more than $4 million, new records show.

And that was before Duke won this year’s national title.

With total compensation topping $4.19 million, the pay appears to make him the top-paid college basketball coach in the nation for the 2008-09 fiscal year and clearly puts him among the highest-paid of all college officials, according to various surveys and analyses, studies and reviews, of pay in higher education and athletics.

Read more: http://blogs.newsobserver.com/iteam/coach-ks-pay-from-duke-topped-41m#ixzz1EnHy95Sj”

You can also note that Jim Calhoun was just suspended for three games next season for NCAA rules violations (something that oddly did not happen at Auburn this year…).