Financial tidbits, thoughts on Petersen’s departure

Harry · March 11, 2015

Any way one looks at it, Petersens tenure was an expensive one for UNT. The school paid $250,000 to buy him out of his contract at Wake Forest. That is well over what Petersen was making in base salary, a figure that started out at $180,000 a year. - See more at: http://meangreenblog.dentonrc.com/2015/03/financial-tidbits-thoughts-on-petersens-departure.html/#sthash.kjIVRNTM.dpuf

Ben Gooding · March 11, 2015

Wow, just wow. How in the hell is RV still employed by The University of North Texas... It's astonishing.

FirefightnRick · March 11, 2015

What? We paid a quarter mil to bring him here? That can't be right.

Rick

UNT90 · March 11, 2015

What? We paid a quarter mil to bring him here? That can't be right.
Rick

Did we at least get a quarter of a million from UT when they took Aston? Maybe that's how we paid? Or did the great negotiator just give Aston away for a song?

VideoEagle · March 11, 2015

First of all, something weird is going on with posts in this thread as they seem to be disappearing then some reappear.

From Vito's article I think we should consider Brock and Capps first. Brock has a lot of success in his background and a decades of recruiting. Capps has some skins on the wall as well. Mitchell is a very young assistant. No one should be hired simply because they are an alum, there has to be something more than that.

VideoEagle · March 11, 2015

Now I realize there are two threads started at the same time with the exact same title!

FirefightnRick · March 11, 2015

When it's all said and done, depending on the final deal it looks like we may have spent close to or possibly over $1 Million on a coach that won 28 games.

Rick

DeepGreen · March 11, 2015

Mitchell is a very young assistant. No one should be hired simply because they are an alum, there has to be something more than that.

Total agreement here.

Ryan Munthe · March 11, 2015

This is a big statement having an ACC coach leave his team to come to NT. Look out for us next year, GMG

The ACC is a strong basketball conference, is it not?

We just hired a HEAD COACH, not an ASSISSTANT, from a strong basketball conference, did we not?

And people are complaining because.........?

Wow...haven't seen his resume but hiring someone from an ACC school sounds impressive to me. Vito kept saying that this was a desired position, apparently he was correct.

if our women's coaching position was a desired position what does that make our men's coaching position? Is it the desired position as well? great news on this higher. Looks like we got a heck of a coach.

I seem to remember Wake Forest forums going mad because they got their coach poached by UNT. But, of course, revisionist history tells us that Wake was about to fire Peterson. Sure. OK. Found a basketball article in which Wake's basketball beat reporter flipped out over it, too. Seems to me we stepped up and paid a good salary for a proven piece that didn't work out, for better or worse.

Edited March 11, 2015 by Ryan Munthe

FirefightnRick · March 11, 2015

I seem to remember Wake Forest forums going mad because they got their coach poached by UNT. But, of course, revisionist history tells us that Wake was about to fire Peterson. Sure. OK. Found a basketball article in which Wake's basketball beat reporter flipped out over it, too. Seems to me we stepped up and paid a good salary for a proven piece that didn't work out, for better or worse.

A proven piece that was 147-150 and no NCAA appearances his two previous stops.

We paid $1 Million for 28 wins. What is your point trying to defend this hire?

Rick

Ryan Munthe · March 11, 2015

A proven piece that was 147-150 and no NCAA appearances his two previous stops.
We paid $1 Million for 28 wins. What is your point trying to defend this hire?
Rick

.500 at ACC. So ACC and CUSA are the same?

I'm defending it because it seemed like a slam dunk at the time that didn't work out. Revisionist history on this forum is exhausting. Saying that the hire was bad when a majority of people on here thought it was our step to big time and going back and saying "Oh he was about to get fired, we wasted money on him" is hilarious. Petersen needed to part ways, no doubt. It turned out to be a bad hire. But it didn't seem that way originally.

That's my point.

I watched most of the games this year. Trust me, I agree, it was time for new blood. But let's not be revisionist.

Edited March 11, 2015 by Ryan Munthe

FirefightnRick · March 11, 2015

.500 at ACC. So ACC and CUSA are the same?

I'm defending it because it seemed like a slam dunk at the time that didn't work out. Revisionist history on this forum is exhausting. Saying that the hire was bad when a majority of people on here thought it was our step to big time and going back and saying "Oh he was about to get fired, we wasted money on him" is hilarious. Petersen needed to part ways, no doubt. It turned out to be a bad hire. But it didn't seem that way originally.

That's my point.

I watched most of the games this year. Trust me, I agree, it was time for new blood. But let's not be revisionist.

I hear Ya but a few quotes isnt a majority. Many of us who saw how the so called "interview process" went down caused questions from the start. But I applaud you for being able to watch this year regardless.

Rick

UNT90 · March 11, 2015

It turned out to be a bad hire..

That only thing that mattered in that entire post.

Coaches and ADs are judged on results, at least at other universities. Doesn't matter what he did or didn't do before he came here or after he leaves, the only thing that matters is his performance at UNT.

And it was beyond aweful.

That makes him a bad hire. That makes the AD accountable for that bad hire. Might you give the AD a pass if he had an otherwise good hiring record? Maybe.

But that is FAR from the case in this instance (although I'm sure some excuse will be floated out there to cover an ass).

Edited March 11, 2015 by UNT90

untjim1995 · March 11, 2015

.500 at ACC. So ACC and CUSA are the same?

I'm defending it because it seemed like a slam dunk at the time that didn't work out. Revisionist history on this forum is exhausting. Saying that the hire was bad when a majority of people on here thought it was our step to big time and going back and saying "Oh he was about to get fired, we wasted money on him" is hilarious. Petersen needed to part ways, no doubt. It turned out to be a bad hire. But it didn't seem that way originally.

That's my point.

I watched most of the games this year. Trust me, I agree, it was time for new blood. But let's not be revisionist.

Any hire cannot be deemed bad or good until you see what they have, typically over a couple of years. Every once in a while, you get a guy like Benford, who crushes the momentum of a program in a short amount of time, deeming a failure call a little more understandable early on, but usually you gotta see what 2-3 years shows us.

That's how you deem someone a bad hire, assuming there are no off-field or off-court issues to deal with.

Todd Dodge seemed like a great hire when we got him. Vic Trilli did, too. A lot of people liked the Tony Benford hire, just as they did the Mike Petersen hire. But in each case, after a couple of years of watching their teams, unequivocally you could deem them each bad hires. And the extra year or years they got after that have not changed that sentiment, which is why buying out a contract with two years left is smarter than doing it with just one left. The costs of the buyout for the extra year can at least get the opportunity to be made up for by bringing in someone who makes the fanbase believe that improvement is coming, creating excitement and a boost in attendance. The scary part to me about buying out Petersen is that we will do what we did when we hired Dodge, which was find the absolute cheapest option available to help mitigate the costs of the extra year of buying out Dickey's massive $275k per year contract (sarcasm inserted here...) If you are going to give Jalie Mitchell a chance, since she's an unproven assistant, at least she's one of our own, one that you can feel good about giving a chance to even if she hasn't ever been a head coach before. Its hiring an assistant or HS head coach who's not an alum from UNT to be a head coach at our university that just kills us usually. Granted, Petersen or Aston didn't fit the description, but women's hoops isn't nearly as costly as the other two revenue sports, of which we have hired a grand total of three people since 1973 who were full-time head coaches before they got here to be head coaches--Hayden Fry in 1973, Bob Tyler in 1982 and Dan McCarney in 2011. No one in mens basketball had been a full-time head coach at another college before they got here. Its why I thought Benford wasn't a great hire when we hired him. An inexperienced head coach, known as a recruiter, that is also an alum of Texas Tech--if he did well here, he'd be the head coach in Lubbock right now. If he doesn't, you're stuck with him for 4 years. Hiring anyone else might have seen them already leave, as well. But I'd have taken my chances with at least getting guys like Bob Marlin, Danny Kaspar, or Steve Shields before hiring an assistant outside the program.

Edited March 11, 2015 by untjim1995

Brett Vito · March 11, 2015

MGB: Hoops notes, copy of the Petersen Wake buyout clause.

http://meangreenblog.dentonrc.com/2015/03/wednesday-morning-notes-copy-of-the-petersen-w-f-buyout-clause.html/

UNTFan23 · March 11, 2015

MGB: Hoops notes, copy of the Petersen Wake buyout clause.

http://meangreenblog.dentonrc.com/2015/03/wednesday-morning-notes-copy-of-the-petersen-w-f-buyout-clause.html/

greenit · March 11, 2015

When is the last time UNT paid a buyout to bring in a coach?

UNT90 · March 11, 2015

Wouldn't it be interesting to see what the buy out clause in Aston's contract was? Then we could compare the two to see just how much money we had to spend.

Surely Aston had a buy out clause...

adman · March 11, 2015

Wouldn't it be interesting to see what the buy out clause in Aston's contract was? Then we could compare the two to see just how much money we had to spend.
Surely Aston had a buy out clause...

“We thought it would happen, but not this fast,” Villarreal said of Aston leaving UNT for another school. “It’s an unfortunate part of the business.”

Aston has a buyout in her contract, requiring her to pay $114,375 — nine months of her base salary — to UNT for breaking her five-year contract.

UNT90 · March 11, 2015

Thx Adman.

So we know know that we had to pay roughly $135k net to bring in Peterson.

It does beg to question why Aston's buy out wasn't higher. She was a more successful coach, albeit coming from a lesser conference.

I wonder if there is an industry standard on buy out clauses.

FirefightnRick · March 11, 2015

First off, a few people questioned the notion that UNT paid a buyout to Wake Forest to land Mike Petersen, the womens basketball coach it parted ways with yesterday. I dont see why. Petersens contract Wake Forest buyout clause (the link is to a screen shot in a Word document, the only way I could find to add it to the blog) is in there clear as day in his contract.

First off, Peterson was in the last year of his contract and there was no indication he was going to get an extension. Plus we know that RV called him for advice about coaches and Petersson advised RV to hire himself. That's not someone who is about to get a contract extension in the ACC.

Secondly, no one questions that there was a buyout. We question paying it for him when everyone knew he was in the last year of his contract and the fact he had done nothing spectacular in the first place to make it worth the price, especially when Matt Daniel's Central Arkansas contract buyout would not have been nearly as much.

Rick

Censored by Laurie · March 11, 2015

Thx Adman.
So we know know that we had to pay roughly $135k net to bring in Peterson.
It does beg to question why Aston's buy out wasn't higher. She was a more successful coach, albeit coming from a lesser conference.
I wonder if there is an industry standard on buy out clauses.

Maybe if we had equal pay across gender lines in this great nation of ours, there'd have been less hand-wringing.

FirefightnRick · March 11, 2015

We thought it would happen, but not this fast, Villarreal said of Aston leaving UNT for another school. Its an unfortunate part of the business.
Aston has a buyout in her contract, requiring her to pay $114,375 nine months of her base salary to UNT for breaking her five-year contract.

So just nine months instead of 48 months, which was the remaining time of her contract? Texas would have easily paid that? Or is that not how these things go?

Rick

DeepGreen · March 11, 2015

..........Matt Daniel's Central Arkansas contract buyout would not have been nearly as much.
Rick

Central Arkansas???? Man,that just does not screen "big time" in RV's world of collegiate athletic directorship. Coaches from "marquee" name colleges get RV's attention.