May 2, 2016
Joe Hollmann
[email protected]
Male coaches at UCCS are paid more on average than female coaches, according to data from the U.S. Department of Education’s Equity in Athletics information.
Between four male head coaches and six female head coaches, men are paid an average salary of $52,393 and women are paid $43,376.
For average annual assistant coach pay, five male coaches averaged $10,860, and eight female coaches averaged $6,325.
Updated annually through the Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act, the public data is a requirement for all post-secondary institutions that participate in athletics and want to receive Title IV funding or loans and grants.
Jared Verner, assistant athletic director for media relations and marketing, said the issue is complex because there is a hierarchy in sports.
“You can’t compare men’s basketball to women’s golf,” he said. “We base it basically off of what (Human Resources) say.”
Verner added that the salary is set by the time they start looking for the coach.
“We just go off of who’s the best coach” he said, “whether it’s male or female; it doesn’t matter to us.”
“We give (HR) a rough job description, and they do a cost analysis.”
Jeanne Durr, executive director for Human Resources, said the major factor for salary of a coach is the competiveness of the sport they are hired into, not their gender.
“What sports draw the most participation from students? Do you go watch cross country meets?”
According to Durr, men’s basketball head coach Jeff Culver is paid more than every other coach because of the team’s success and competiveness.
“The only differences I see in salaries are in basketball,” she said.
Durr said that other sports with similar levels of competiveness tend to have much closer matched coach salaries.
With the other athletics on campus, Durr said there were only minor discrepancies of $3,000-$5,000.
“Difference in salary doesn’t mean inequitable” said Durr.
Durr added that it’s better to take a broad approach when looking at coach salaries.
She said the primary way to determine salaries is looking to the 31 designated peer institutions approved by the Colorado Board of Regents, to see what these institutions pay their employees, including coaches.
The peer institutions are other colleges similar to UCCS in criteria, such as student body population, type of college (two year vs. four year), amount of research the college does and if it is primarily residential or non-residential.
Durr also said they look toward the RMAC to see what other colleges pay their coaches.
“In trying to decide what to offer for salaries, we need to look at both these variables, so we offer a competitive salary,” said Durr.