The good thing about being in the Southeastern Conference is that the Ole Miss and Mississippi State sports programs collect tens of millions of dollars each year from broadcasting rights and other “revenue streams” like merchandise sales.
The bad thing about being in the SEC is that it forces the Rebels, Bulldogs and everybody else to spend ridiculous sums of money in an effort to keep up with the wealthier athletic departments in what has become college sports’ pre-eminent conference.
The latest temptation, to which Ole Miss succumbed, was creating a work-around to the Mississippi Constitution’s specific instructions that university employees cannot work under a contract that covers more than four years.
This became an issue because the university wanted to keep Lane Kiffin, its football coach for the past three years. Kiffin, who has had a winning record each year, was being courted by Auburn, which fired its coach at midseason.
One of Auburn’s pitches was that the Tigers have more name, image and likeness money with which to attract recruits. Another one, more important to any employee’s bottom line, was that public universities in Alabama can offer longer contracts than the four years set out in the Mississippi Constitution.
Contract aside, Ole Miss had a few things to offer Kiffin, too. For one, Auburn clearly needs time to rebuild from the ground up — while Ole Miss already has a bunch of good players. Further, in most years Auburn football will be the second banana in the state, laboring in the shadow of mighty Alabama. What’s the incentive for a coach to jump from the No. 1 team in one state to the No. 2 team in another? (OK, there’s one: future election to the U.S. Senate.)
Of course, the incentive is money, and Ole Miss delivered for its coach. The university reportedly has signed Kiffin to a six-year contract averaging $9 million a year. The deal bypasses the Constitution’s four-year limit by coming through Ole Miss’ private athletic foundation.
Two questions here. First, is Kiffin worth $9 million a year? Not so sure; his Ole Miss teams have gone 23-12 in three years. They’re winning two of every three games but have not produced consistently superb results.
But the more important question is whether a constitutional dodge is the proper way to hold on to a college football coach. That’s a tough one.
Yes, Ole Miss and other public universities need to keep up with their out-of-state competitors. And the four-year contract limit may be a hindrance in that effort.
But there are some positives about the contract limit, especially when a highly paid employee has to be dismissed for poor performance. That four-year limit surely has kept athletic programs in Mississippi from oversized buyouts when they make a hiring mistake.
Add it all up and here’s the deal: Are football coaches or other sports officials worth amending the state Constitution to remove the four-year contract limit? In all honesty, no.
Jack Ryan, Enterprise-Journal
