Salary at Akron Is No Bonanza on Faust Scale

Gerry Faust, new head football coach at Akron University, is being paid $70,000 a year. That’s twice the salary of the athletic director, a fact that disturbs some people in Akron, but Faust can’t understand the fuss.

“Considering what we’re trying to accomplish here, a move from Division I-AA to major college status, it’s not a large sum at all,” he told the Akron Beacon Journal. “You know, when I was at Notre Dame, I got a heck of a lot more money and plums than I’m getting here.”

Even then, he didn’t consider himself overpaid.

“I sat down once and figured out what I was being paid by the hour,” Faust said. “I tossed in all the 14- to 16-hour days and seven days a week I worked for all but Christmas Day and a couple of weeks in June, and it figured out to $2 or $3 an hour.”

Surely, that rates a tag line, but why be cruel?

Roosevelt Brown, Hall of Fame offensive tackle for the New York Giants, was one of the least-penalized players in the game, but former teammate Kyle Rote told Sport magazine about a time Brown got caught.

Rote said when he asked Brown why he got flagged, the big tackle said: “It wasn’t my fault. The whole thing started when he hit me back.”

Billy Olson has broken the indoor record four times and Sergei Bubka three times, but track historian Stan Saplin reveals that 60 years ago, Charles Hoff of Norway set 10 world records in the pole vault during the 1926 indoor season.

Starting in New York in February and winding up in Chicago in April, Hoff raised the record from 13-1 to 13-8. Not only that, but he set a world long jump record of 23-7 in one meet, and in another he finished third in the 600-yard run behind a pair of Olympic runners.

Note: Less than a month after the last meet, Hoff was charged with accepting money and was barred by the AAU. He died last year at the age of 83.

Tony Kornheiser of the Washington Post proposes that the best way to prepare for an afternoon nap is to turn on a golf tournament featuring a leader board of such favorites as Morris Hatalsky, Jodie Mudd, Rex Caldwell, Larry Mize, Jeff Sluman, Alan Tapie, Mark Wiebe and his personal favorite, Bob Tway.

“I have no idea what happens next,” he said. “I’m already history. I’m gone. I’m out of here. Nod City. If I’m real tired, and I get real lucky because the name of the tournament is impossibly long, like the ‘Lloyd, Beau, Jeff and London Bridges Underwater Invitational,’ or ‘The Bakersfield Junior Chamber of Commerce, Isuzu, Buick, Conoco, Denny’s, Pat and Debbie Boone All You Need Is Milk and God Celebrity Pro-Am,’ I can be asleep before we even get to the leader board.”

He added: “I can’t get enough of the stuff. I’m hoping they put it on video cassettes. I’ll go out and buy some, and pop them into the VCR whenever I need a nap. How about, ‘Great Water Holes in the Northeast.’ Or ‘Vic Regalado and Dr. Gil Morgan Discuss The History of the Two-Iron.’ Or ‘Andymania! Andy Bean, Andy North and Andy Griffith Play The Andy Williams.’ ”

Quotebook

Jim Leyland, new manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates, promising he won’t make his pitchers run 1 1/2 miles every day, as he did Saturday: “Some days they may run three miles.”