There have been many questions regarding the somewhat odd timing of Bob Stoops’ retirement as Oklahoma head coach. During his press conference he claimed that his thoughts to retire had really picked up over the past couple of weeks, and it all happened very quickly.
But is that entirely true?
A buddy of mine said he was doing some searching online for Bob Stoops’ salary and contract information, and came across this breakdown from Newsday (Long Island, New York newspaper). It listed the details of the former coach’s contract.
Here are the details:
-
Base compensation
- 2014 guaranteed money: $5,250,000
- Contract guaranteed money $49,000,000
- contract length: 9 years
- start date: Jan. 1, 2012
- amended: June 25, 2014
- end date: Dec. 31, 2020
- 2014 base salary: $325,000
-
Incentives
- contractual raises:
- additional guaranteed annual compensation: For PR/equipment/recruiting/public speaking
2012: $3,325,000
2013: $3,525,000
2014: $4,025,000
2015: $4,375,000
2016-2020: $150,000 raise each year - retention bonus: $700,000 every June 1 he remains head coach
So… does the June retirement date make more sense now?
It sure does to me.
For the record, I have zero problem with this. Stoops agreed to the contract, Oklahoma agreed to the contract, and he exploited it to the best of his abilities.
Now we don’t know, and likely never will know, if he actually collected on that $700,000. Could it have hit his account the morning of Friday June 1st, and a call was put into David Boren at 9:01 A.M. saying, “I’m done.” Who knows how it worked.
What I do know is there is no reason to knock coach for this. The timing is fine and would not have been any better had he done this 1, 2 or 4 months ago. The program moves ahead with Lincoln Riley, David Boren and Joe Castiglione are still running the program in an efficient manner, and Bob Stoops goes home with another 700 G’s in his pocket.
Brilliant.
