Dave Hyde says UM is lowballing Randy Shannon…

I’ve written many times here that I’m a fan of the Sun Sentinel’s Dave Hyde. I’ve always dug his writing style and his ability to drive his point home. I also think the timeliness of his work is spot on and he’s done it again with his latest piece regarding the University of Miami lowballing Randy Shannon, stalling contract talks.

Whether you’re pro or anti-Randy, this one is on the University of Miami and the lack of cooperation in getting this deal inked is 100% on the notoriously cheap program.

UM top brass, you brought in Randy at bottom dollar and he’s currently the lowest paid coach in the ACC – despite showing improvement each year and having his team in the conference title hunt two of the past three seasons. True, he hasn’t gotten the Canes to the ACC title game, but he’s getting closer and if you want to get over the hump, you have a decision to make.

Coaches are already recruiting for the 2011 class and current recruits want to know if they can count on Shannon being at the helm next season. Are you really willing to lose top-flight recruits over a couple hundred thousand dollars? What kind of message are you sending?

Get the deal done already. Don’t penalize Shannon over blunders Paul Dee made with Larry Coker, Ferne Labati and Perry Clark. Shannon is a long-time Cane that has given heart and soul to this program for decades. If he was asking for stupid money, sure, negotiate away… but we know that’s not the case. UM is simply being penny safe and pound foolish and in the end, the football program will pay in one way or the other.

Get the deal done… and read Dave Hyde’s piece if you need the point driven home even further.

Hyde: University of Miami low-balling Randy Shannon on contract deal
Lack of extension is a thundercloud over next season

Let’s say you’re a young lawyer. You’re given a bad caseload. You win more than most. You don’t color outside any ethical lines. But when it’s time to talk money, you’re offered less than your peers.

How would you feel?

Or let’s say you’re a young salesperson. You inherit an underachieving territory. You do a good job rebuilding it. But when it’s contract time, your boss gives you a low-ball offer.

How would you feel?

You’re Randy Shannon. You inherited an empty cupboard at Miami football and have improved each year. You cleaned up the off-field issues. You put the graduation rate among the nation’s best programs.

Yet when he’s talked money with Miami over the past several months, four formal proposals have gone back and forth, according to a source. It has become the strangest of stories.

The latest offer remains less than new Florida State coach Jimbo Fisher’s $1.8 million a year. It’s less than new South Florida coach Skip Holtz’s $1.7 million a year.

It’s less than Duke’s David Cutcliffe, who is the 10th highest paid coach in the ACC at a reported $1.5 million a year.

It’s on par with the $1.3 million George O’Leary makes at Central Florida, the source said. This isn’t to question that’s a lot of money. It’s to put that money in context of his peers.

How would you feel?

Shannon stays silent a moment. He looks across the practice field. He finally says in a measured tone, “I have faith in the university and hopefully, someday soon, it’ll get done.”

Money evidently is the only holdup to Shannon and Miami’s administration. But it impacts more than that. It impacts the future. It involves Shannon entering the final year of his current contract, which is something coaches never do for obvious reasons.

Take this past year’s recruiting class.

“It had an effect,” Shannon said. “I was asked point-blank by recruits, ‘Are you going to be there next year?’ Some of the universities we were going against were saying, ‘Why go to Miami when my coach has a new contract?’ ‘’

Shannon has taken Miami from five to seven to nine wins. He’s building something. But he isn’t perfect. When you hire a first-time head coach, there’s a learning curve involved and he’s lived it these past three seasons.

He’s made mistakes. Clock management. Media. Boosters. He can do better. He needs to win bigger. He says so himself.

But if this was about performance, why not build a bonus into the contract? A real bonus, like Clemson’s Dabo Swinney, who had a clause jumping him from $800,000 last year to the ACC median salary of $1.75 million next season for making the conference championship game.

Shannon is asked if he’d accept a clause like that and nods his head. “Yes,” he says.

Everyone knows Miami athletics run on a shoestring. Shannon raised much of the money to improve the facilities from the Stone Age.

Shannon made less than $1 million the past few years. That’s understandable for a first-time coach who had done nothing. But basketball coach Frank Haith is in the same neighborhood. He’s made the NCAA tourney one time in six years.

Miami has the richest football recruiting pool in the country, and so the job always has attracted young, hungry coaches who make a name here and money elsewhere.

Jimmy Johnson. Dennis Erickson. Butch Davis now is the third-highest-paid coach in the ACC at $2.2 million despite having won less than Shannon with more drafted NFL talent the past few years.

No one is suggesting Shannon should be the highest paid coach in his conference (Georgia Tech’s Paul Johnson is at $2.3 million a year). But should it be just above Boston College’s Frank Spaziani for the worst?

These things usually are worked out behind closed doors. This one isn’t yet. It’s gone on and on and on. It wasn’t just a recruiting story against Miami. It’s a storm cloud on the coming season, too. A college coach and his staff entering its final year?

“It’ll get done,” Shannon says.

That it hasn’t by now is weird enough.

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