The First $2,000,000 Coordinator
… and other absurdities
Yes, Big Time College Football now has its first, but certainly not last, $2,000,000 Coordinator – some galoot named Mike Elko. Mike was at Notre Dame but now is at Texas A&M with Jimbo Fisher.
OK… yes, I know that galoot Mike Elko is “only” making $1,800,000 as Texas A&M’s new Defensive Coordinator (DC), not $2,000,000. But “The First $1,800,000 Coordinator… and other absurdities” doesn’t have the same impact. Does it?
In the “it’s only $$$” world of Big Time College Football what’s a coupla $100,000s… really? Dabo’s DC Brent Venable will likely be at $2M as soon as Dabo finishes mourning…
Just a year ago “Multi-Millionaire Mike” Elko was the DC at Wake Forest as in “even Wake Forest has one” fame. No idea what Mike was making way back then but I bet it had two less zeros in it. During Mike’s one season at Notre Dame he took their defense from 60-something to 30-something in some indecipherable complex ranking of defenses. That means, theoretically, there are 30-some other DC’s better than Mike Elko. Their wives can’t be too happy with their hubbies meager-by-comparison paychecks now.
I doubt legendary Coordinator “Smiling Jon” Tenuta ever reached $500,000 in his prime.
Salary figures are just numbers. Let’s compare them to something…
Remember the furor over Gene Chizik’s salary at UNC… $600,000. Mike Elko makes 3.5 times what Gene The Guru made. …
Yes, it would take SIXTEEN Mike Elko salaries to build Larry Fedora’s “Gotta Be Competitive” Indoor Palace of Bling.
What I don’t know is… how does Mike Elko’s “almost $2,000,000” salary compare to the total salaries of UNCCH’s full-time “Crisis Management / Keep Us Accredited” gang. At last count there were “about a dozen of’em” on Joel Curran’s ever-expanding staff of obfuscators and misdirectors.
Have we already reached the point that “a special teams coach” makes more than “the Provost” at most Power-5 schools? Isn’t that mentioned in Revelation as a sign of End Of Days?
Several weeks ago I asked the rhetorical question “What will be the next utterly ridiculous GOTTA HAVE TO BE COMPETITIVE in Big Time College FB?”
Everyone of’em is solely designed to “close the sale” on semi-literate 17 y/os in ESPN’s Top 100. At least for now… that may be “Come to Whatzamatta U ‘cause we have a $2,000,000 Coordinator”.
The semi-literate 17 y/o replies… “But do you have a nap room and a waterslide?”
Everybody who thinks this scenario is incredibly stoopid, please say “DAMN!”.
What is the difference between a $2,000,000 Coordinator at Texas A&M and a $50,000 Coordinator at a Division III school? IS there a difference other than $$$?
Football is… teaching fundamental of blocking, tackling, passing, catching, running, kicking. They all read the same books and attend the same clinics.
Football is… drawing Xs and Os on a whiteboard. Oops, was that racist? Do they still have “blackboards”? My bad! Board monkeys do that on cocktail napkins… and video games.
Football is… breaking down film. When they line up “this way” they do this… so we should line up “that way” to beat them. Again… hardly brain surgery.
There are athletes that are exceptionally talented with incredible God-given abilities to perform in high-pressure situations. The Tom Bradys… Lebron James… Mike Trouts and 100 more are MAYBE worth incredible salaries for consistently excellent performance… but “Coordinators”?
Should the NO Saints DC be beheaded on Bourbon St because his player missed the tackle on that Viking receiver?
Speaking of Assistant Coaches… UNCCH is recycling Tommy Thigpen. Thigpen played LB at UNC 4-5 Head Coaches ago. He mighta played in The NFL a few years. As a college assistant coach, he has a reputation as an “Outstanding Recruiter”
. Uh Oh!
Where have we heard THAT before? Other than “The Butcher” who still has no clue who he is… all the rest of you are saying John “Black Santa” Blake. Yep.
There is a notorious character out there named Trooper Tyler/Taylor(?) who has been “an outstanding recruiter” for, I think, every SEC school and at least half of Big 12 schools.
“Outstanding Recruiters”, like Mafia “hit men”, stick around about two years at most. The more notorious ones, like Blake, “Trooper” and Thigpen, try to stay one step ahead of the NCAA Goons investigating their nefariousness. Thigpen apparently has a “beat up his wife/girlfriend” rap on his resume too. I don’t know about that.
I was asked on Twitter last week how long I thought Thigpen would be at UNC this go-round. I said “two years at most, maybe just one”.
Some sad little TruBlue board monkey yapped “I wish YOU (meaning me) would go away in two seconds…”.
Hardly the most colorfully profane insult I have received in 20 years, but the best one I got that day. I didn’t bother to even share that pitiful one with Dan Kane. Dan would just giggle.
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I have finished that 8-book Outlaw Chronicles about Robin Hood by Angus 
Donald. OUTSTANDING! It took me two weeks… almost 100 hours of listening. Worth every minute. Any time I rate anything here be it books … barbecue… Bond Girls… or routes to get to the beach… they are all simply My Opinion. Your Opinion may be 180 from mine.
IMO… The Outlaw Chronicles ARE even better than Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove series which are also Outstanding as well.
I am now reading I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes, a Terrorist Thriller recommended, I think, by BLSays Buddy Dudley Moore. Next will be Cowdog’s choice The 13th Valley. A Viet Nam War story. Then probably a series about a Roman Legionnaire or maybe a Wilbur Smith’s South African series.
Good Reads and Column Fodder… hopefully, when I leave this mortal coil there will still be a stack of both waiting in my In-Box.
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