The cost of change
It’s been a quiet weekend on the Iowa basketball scene.
That’s probably not a good thing if your name is Todd Lickliter.
Iowa director of athletics Gary Barta remains in Indianapolis, where he was scheduled to attend meetings and participate in a retirement function for retiring Michigan athletics director Bill Martin before returning to Iowa City on Sunday.
Barta has offered nothing more than the cryptic statement he released Thursday which basically thanked Iowa’s players for the efforts during the season and offered no support for Hawkeye coaches, saying only that he would review the season in upcoming days as he does on an annual basis.
He will not likely meet with Lickliter until some point into the week. Media members have been told that there are “scheduling issues” that make a resolution in this situation unlikely until midweek at the earliest. By then, it should be known if Lickliter will be retained as the Hawkeye coach or if the man who hired him has decided to go in a different direction.
Change is likely. That change may likely start at the top, the most likely outcome given the silence of Barta. It could involve a shake-up of the staff. Lickliter made it clear during Thursday’s postgame that he has no plans to use health issues as a reason to quietly ride off into the night.
Barta has a handle on the attitude of fans. Many have been vocal in their displeasure where the program is at. Others have simply stopped purchasing tickets, offering a laundry list of excuses. Iowa’s losses do impact the athletic department’s bottom line.
If Barta chooses to cut Lickliter loose, that comes with a pricetag, too. The contract he agreed to with Lickliter would pay the Iowa coach $2.4 million if he is fired without cause at the current time – $600,000 for each of the four remaining years on the seven-year deal.
Beyond that, most replacements Iowa would be looking at likely have a buyout clause in their contract as well that would require payment to whatever institution the coach currently employs the coach. To secure Lickliter, Iowa cut Butler a check and Lickliter convinced his former employer to forego a clause that would have required the Hawkeyes and Bulldogs to play a home-and-home series within a specified timeframe.
That doesn’t even get into the type of dollars that could be involved in landing a new coach. Lickliter’s compensation at Iowa, including revenue from camps, TV and radio, etc., approaches $1.2 million. Iowa offered Vanderbilt’s Kevin Stallings a $1.4 million deal at the time it hired Lickliter, but was rejected.
A veteran coach in a top-level BCS program will likely command around $2 million per year. Coaches currently working at the mid-major level or assistants at that level would likely cost Iowa something in ballpark of what it is currently paying Lickliter.
That is the cost of change these days.
