The Lobo football team is bowl-eligible for the third consecutive season, and head coach Rocky Long has been given his fourth contract extension in seven seasons.
Athletic director Rudy Davalos announced Tuesday Long was given a contract extension leaving him at the helm of Lobo football team through the 2009 season.
Beginning next season, Long will receive an additional $100,000 in compensation, including an increase in his base salary from $176,000 to $190,000 per season.
The renewed contract will increase his overall compensation package, which includes television and radio contracts and annuities to $425,000.
In 2000, Ritchie McKay, men's head basketball coach, signed a 5-year contract worth up to $500,000.
On average, UNM professors make $80,000 per year, according to University records.
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Davalos said while many professors are underpaid, their salaries are not correlated in any way to what coaches make.
"Some head coaches make more than some professors because the market dictates those salaries on the Division 1-A coaching profession," he said. "It certainly does not mean that their jobs are more important than the professors,' and it is not based on that premise."
Allen Parkman, professor of management at the Anderson Schools of Management, said part of the reason coaches of big-money sports like football and basketball get paid so much is a result of the business side of sports at colleges and universities in the United States.
"Part of it is supply and demand," he said. "The fact that when you get to Division 1, the supply of people perceived to be capable are in limited supply, so people are worth what they get paid."
Parkman said although professors get paid less, when they are granted tenure, they get job security - whereas if coaches don't produce, they get fired.
Student Eric Alen said he thought most coaches made the same amount as the average professor.
"If they're making that kind of money, they should be nationally ranked," he said. "That's just ridiculous. They're all making too much money."
The idea of big-time athletics at universities is something uniquely American, said Peter Dorato, professor of electrical and computer engineering.
"It's a real old American cultural problem," he said. "The attention of the general public is more favorable to sports than to academics. If a school can field a nationally ranked football or basketball team, it gives them recognition."
Student Anthony Gravagne said justifying coaches' salaries by arguing the football program brings in a lot of money is no excuse for such high salaries.
"Look at how much money tuition is bringing in from the students," he said. "Professors are what keep the students here, not the coaches. I think they (coaches) are perceived as on-campus celebrities, but I don't think that means that they should be paid two or three times what some of the professors are making when the professors work just as hard, if not harder, than the coaches do."
