Stuart Whitehair provides us with a Father's Day Update from his blog cuatthegame.com (posted June 15, 2008):
Contract extension for Dan Hawkins
Colorado head coach Dan Hawkins received a contract extension at the CU Board of Regents meeting June 4th. The unanimous vote of the Regents gives the Buffs’ football coach a contract through the 2012 season.
For head coach Dan Hawkins, the extension adds two years to his first contract with Colorado. The guaranteed money was not significantly raised—up $44,500 per season to around $900,000.
Much of the increase in salary comes in incentive bonus money. Previously, Hawkins was eligible for $50,000 for such incentives as student citizenship, community outreach, and academic progress. The bonus money for reaching those incentives has been raised to $77,500 each.
In his first two seasons, Hawkins met 95% of these incentives.
Other bonuses, to be awarded for meeting goals nationally and within the Big 12 conference, as well as for achieving individual goals (such as Big 12 Coach of the Year), have also been significantly raised.
“I am honored that the university feels good about what we are doing here,” said Hawkins of his extension. “I am proud of the efforts we have put forth and glad they have the confidence in us that we are doing the right things on and off the field, and they want us to stay here.”
Hawkins also discussed his interest in increasing salaries for his assistant coaches, commenting, “It is not just the head coach. You have got to have great people.”
While I am glad that the contract extension was accomplished with little fanfare and little opposition, I am not sure that it was necessary just yet. Hawkins noted in his interview that, as he still had three years remaining on his original contract, opponents were not yet using the length of his contract as a negative on the recruiting trail.
Plus, the assistant coaches at CU are currently not that far off the pace of their Big 12 counterparts. Why not wait until the end of the 2008 season, hopefully on the heels of a winning season, to announce the extension? What if the Buffs have a third consecutive losing season in 2008?
How much hand-wringing will there be if the program, already posting the worst consecutive seasons since the dark days of the early 1980s, fails to make headway against the ever-improving competition in the conference, and yet has a coach who still has four years remaining on his contract?
Okay, enough of the negative. Even if the Buffs are around .500 in 2008, I am very optimistic about the future. The schedules in the next few years are not as daunting, and the accumulation of talent in Boulder is undeniable.
Hopefully, we will look back at this extension with the same fondness and admiration as we do the extension granted to Bill McCartney by athletic director Bill Marolt in 1984. With the head coach at CU in the midst of his third straight losing campaign (and what would become a 1-10 record that season), Marolt extended the contract of his football coach.
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