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More on coaches’ salaries

Jim Camden’s interesting article on state workers’ pay missed an opportunity (“Coaches lead workers on pay list — again,” July 13).

Coaches, we learn, comprise seven of the ten highest paid state employees. We also learn, this time from the universities, that “[coaches’] salaries do not come from taxpayers … but from revenues like television contracts and ticket sales.”

As it happens, the American Association of University Professors publishes an annual faculty salary survey. The 2013-2014 report addresses questions about coaches’ salaries (https://www.aaup.org/reports-publications/2013-14salarysurvey), in particular the conceit that their extravagance is funded from revenue their programs generate. It turns out that in 2012-2013 only 23 college athletic programs, of the many hundreds in the US, were in the black.

It could well be that UW and WSU are among that small number of happy universities with self-supporting athletic programs. Maybe this could be the subject of a follow-up article.

Paul De Palma

Spokane

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