Canadian College Gets Head Coach For a Buck, But Will It Get Bang For It?

I have no idea whether we’re in a depression or a recession or a rebound, so I’ll spare you the hacky jokes and speculate that nearly anyone working for a dollar has to be a deal in any economic climate.

⇥Some creative accounting and neat number crunching helped the University of Guelph hire Stu Lang as its new head football coach. He was introduced Tuesday at a news conference at the Gryphon Lounge in the Mitchell Athletic Centre.⇥⇥Lang admitted that during his presentation to athletic director Tom Kendall he offered to work for mere pocket change; the equivalent of four quarters.⇥

⇥⇥That’s right. Lang offered to work for a buck. That little gold coin you save for pesky panhandlers and conveniently placed vending machines.⇥

⇥⇥“I thought, ‘well, that’s creative,’” Kendall said Tuesday after announcing Lang as Kyle Walters’ replacement. “But we can’t do it.”⇥

⇥⇥Instead, Kendall said Lang will make somewhere between $55,664 and $83,496 — otherwise known as grid P05 of the university’s professional/management salary bands effective May 2007-May 2010.⇥

⇥⇥And then Lang will promptly donate somewhere between $55,663 and $83,495 back to the football program.⇥

In effect, instead of spending on an established name, Guelph is giving a head coaching job to a former athlete -- Lang won five Grey Cups with the Edmonton Eskimos -- who has no coaching background, and relying on the money he’s donating back to the university to hire full-time coordinators, a luxury in Canadian Interuniversity Sport. That will help the new-to-coaching Lang (“Give me two days and I can come up with the perfect play, but I can’t do it in two seconds.”), and give the Gryphons a fuller staff charged with trying to get back to a Vanier Cup final for the first time since 1984.

But why is Lang willing to work for a pittance? Well, the money really is no object: after his playing days were done, Lang served as president of his family’s label-making business, which is part of a company that has drawn $1 billion in revenue.

So Guelph gets a coach for about a dollar, and coordinators for free. Lang’s reign might not turn out to be a smashing success, but it’s going to be very hard for anyone to say the university didn’t get a massive return on investment.

(HT: CIS Blog.)

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