HBO’s Real Sports profiles Lane Kiffin on Tuesday and in the piece reporter Andrea Kremer claims the 35-year-old’s new contract with the school will pay him $4 million annually. Kiffin’s decorated predecessor Pete Carroll made $4.4M his last year in L.A., qualifying the coach as the highest-paid employee of any private school in the America at the time.
(Credit)
Of course, Carroll won seven consecutive Pac-10 titles and two BCS Championships before he reached that level of compensation. Lane’s claim to fame is having won the friendship of Carroll, who was largely responsible for getting him the NFL Oakland and Tennessee head coaching jobs.
The $4M number pegs Kiffin as the fourth-highest paid coach in the nation, behind Bob Stoops, Mack Brown and Nick Saban. Saban was raised to nearly $5m per season after winning the BCS Title at ‘Bama earlier this year. Brown also was bumped up to $5.1M after 2009. Urban Meyer currently draws $4M per season, equal to Kiffin’s compensation.
Real Sports also reports Kiffin’s dad, 70-year-old Monte, will make $2 million this season as USC’s Defensive Coordinator, which is what his son raked in during his one season as Tennessee Coach.
While you may think that Kiffin’s seemingly huge salary will buy some patience if the Trojans struggle early in his tenure, consider that he’s being evaluated by the same well-monied USC alums who saw fit to give him $4M per in the first place.
2:20 pm on May 17th, 2010
Carrol won 1 BCS championship, only 1.
2:48 pm on May 17th, 2010
has anyone earned more $ for less work? his wife is hot. did you forget to run that pic?
3:05 pm on May 17th, 2010
2 million of that is because they will be on probation and only an untalented name coach would sacrifice his career to take the job
3:14 pm on May 17th, 2010
all this money just to watch Stanford or Washington win the pac ten and jake Locker go number one in the draft.
3:25 pm on May 17th, 2010
Haters are everywhere….hate the player not the game! USC will continue their domination going forward.
5:58 pm on May 17th, 2010
Continue their domination going forward?
You mean the domination that ended last year?
And the above commenter was correct, Pete won ONE BCS title.
6:28 pm on May 17th, 2010
What an absolute joke
Kiffin has done absolutely nothing as a HC
Nothing
Because he keeps doing OK people keep saying that he WILL be great
11:23 am on May 18th, 2010
It’s going to be so much fun watching that Kiffin fail at USC.
USC is still afraid to play SEC teams, too. Unlike, other Pac 10 teams.
2:36 am on May 30th, 2010
1 bcs is right on. The media out here gave him the second. No one else did though.
Lame is what usc wanted and now they have him. One lame coach and his dad and a do anything to win guy in Obregon, however you spell it it reaks of cheating.
Dominance my butt, they’re due for another long season maybe 6 loses his time. I can’t wait.
11:18 am on May 31st, 2010
The story says: “The $4M number pegs Kiffin as the fourth-highest paid coach in the nation, behind Bob Stoops, Mack Brown and Nick Saban.”
But then the accompanying chart lists Mack Brown as number 7, earning just a little over three million.
Is it really that hard to proofread a story that’s this short?
2:10 pm on July 17th, 2010
To bad for USC that Kiffin is no where the caliber of a coach that Sabin is. After all look what he did for the Vol’s last year.