Athletics: Perks, pay detailed in new UL athletic director’s contract

Tim Buckley, The Advertiser, June 1, 2017

Details of new University of Louisiana at Lafayette athletic director Bryan Maggard’s contract with the school reveals a base salary higher than that of his predecessor and one particularly special perk.

The contract — a copy of which recently was obtained from UL by The Daily Advertiser — runs for at least three full years, through the end of February in 2020.

It will be automatically extended for one year if Maggard “receives a favorable evaluation” from the university’s president after the first year of the deal.

UL president Joseph Savoie hired Maggard — who worked the last two-plus decades at the University of Missouri, most recently as executive associate athletic director — earlier this year.

He began work in early March.

Maggard’s base salary is $295,000 per year, plus “all applicable State of Louisiana authorized general salary increases for which he is eligible.”

That’s $85,000 more in base salary than former Ragin’ Cajuns athletic director Scott Farmer, who was ousted from the position by Savoie last November, according to terms of a contact signed in November 2014.

“I am very grateful for the opportunity to serve as director of athletics at University of Louisiana, and could not be more happy to be given this opportunity,” Maggard, who puts no limits on how long he plans to stay at UL, said Wednesday. “I look forward to a very long career here.”

The UL System Board of Supervisors approved the contract at its most-recent meeting in Baton Rouge.

Maggard’s pay rate also compares favorably to the base salary of another athletic director who recently received a new contract from a school that’s a member of the Sun Belt Conference, to which UL belongs.

According to the Savannah Morning News, Georgia Southern athletic director Tom Kleinhein — at that school since 2012 — has a base salary of $265,000 on his new four-year deal.

Maggard’s contract also contains some standard supplemental incentive clauses that could increase his pay by as much as $22,500 annually, including $2,500 each tied to:

academic progress rate for UL student-athletes (960 is the bar; the Cajuns recently surpassed it);
graduation success rate (85 percent or more);
grade point average (3.1 or better);
paid attendance for football and men’s basketball home games (10 percent increase from prior season) and, separately, season ticket sales for the same (also a 10 percent increase); and
athletic department fundraising (starting at a bar of $12 million in fiscal year 2018).

Farmer’s contract contained similar incentives, though each paid $3,000 and had slightly different terms and thresholds.

Farmer’s deal also contained a potential $3,000 bonus for the program having “no major NCAA infractions,” which its football team did following a standardized test scores-related recruiting scandal allegedly steered by a former assistant coach.

Maggard’s contract contains no such bonus.

Farmer’s contract, unlike Maggard’s, also included $4,000 bonuses per team for UL’s football, men’s basketball, women’s basketball, baseball and softball programs qualifying for postseason play, something they all frequently did especially during the latter half of his tenure.

But Maggard’s contract does have a $5,000 bonus for the entire athletic program winning a conference all-sports championship — known in the Sun Belt as the Bubas Cup — and $2,500 for finishing in the top 100 nationally in the NACDA Directors’ Cup standings.

UL finished eighth among 12 in the race for the 2016-17 Bubas Cup, recently won by South Alabama with Texas State placing second, Texas-Arlington third and UL Monroe at the bottom of the pack.

By way of comparison to a newly signed contract from an athletic director at a school that belongs to a much higher-profile conference than that of the Sun Belt, Sheahon Zenger of Big 12-member Kansas recently received a new contract that — according to KUsports.com — runs for four years, increases his base pay from $619,000 to $700,000 and contains a $40,000 bonus if the Jayhawks having a winning football season.

Maggard’s contract also contains several standard enhancements, including use of a vehicle or a car allowance of up to $6,000 annually, a cell phone allowance of $80 per month and reimbursement of up to $29,500 for relocation costs including as many as six months of temporary housing.

Perhaps the sweetest perk in Maggard’s deal, though, is a membership at Oakburne Country Club, a private golf, tennis and swimming facility in Lafayette founded in 1955.

Farmer’s contract contained no such supplement.

Like Maggard’s automobile allowance, travel-expense reimbursements, the cell phone allowance and the relocation expenses, the country club membership is paid for by the UL Lafayette Foundation, a tax-exempt donations acquisitions arm of the university.

According to a 2015 Daily Advertiser story, Oakbourne dues “can range anywhere from $86 up to $425 per month, plus an initiation fee that ranges anywhere from $250 up to $3,500.”

That’s one perk, though, that Maggard — who spent Wednesday on the road, visiting with Cajun boosters and donors in Jefferson Davis Parish — has not yet had a chance to fully enjoy.

“Unfortunately I have not been able to partake in that as much as I’d like to, just given the newness of the job,” he said.

“I’m consumed with the workload,” Maggard added, “but hopefully look forward to the opportunity to spend some time out there, at least, whether that’s work-related activities or maybe a little bit of personal time.”