Coaches Admit Breaking Pay Rule

Coaching legends Ara Parseghian and Barry Switzer said they had broken the same NCAA rule that led to the resignation of University of Florida Coach Galen Hall, a newspaper reported.

Also, Florida State Coach Bobby Bowden said 90% of coaches do not or did not know the rule--which forbids a head coach from supplementing an assistant coach’s salary--exists, the Palm Beach Post reported in today’s editions.

“I will tell you right now,” said Parseghian, who won national championships in 1966 and ‘73, “when I was at Notre Dame, I co-shared income that I received . . . but that was after the fact.

“It was commercial and television money I had received as a reward for our success. I shared it at Christmas, as bonuses, with my assistant coaches.”

Parseghian would not say how much he paid his assistants at Notre Dame in bonuses. He said he did not realize the NCAA had a rule prohibiting a head coach from supplementing assistant coaches’ income until he read of Hall’s resignation.

Hall admitted giving $4,000 to former defensive coordinator Zaven Yaralian and $18,000 to former offensive coordinator Lynn Amedee, saying he did not know the supplements violated a rule.

“I wasn’t even aware that rule existed,” Parseghian was quoted as saying from his business office in South Bend, Ind.

Former Oklahoma Coach Switzer said he supplemented the salaries of his assistants, graduate assistants and secretaries--leading to the Sooners’ current NCAA probation status.

According to Nancy Mitchell, a legislative director with the NCAA, the rule has been in the NCAA’s manual “for quite some time.”

Specifically, it states: “The institution, as opposed to any outside source, shall remain in control of determining who is to be its employee and the amount of salary the employee is to receive within the restrictions specified by the NCAA legislation.”

A head coach, in this instance, is considered “an outside source.”

Bowden said he never supplemented his assistants’ salaries.

“I never did it at all,” he said. “And it wasn’t because I wouldn’t do it, but I never had the funds to do it.

“I will say that out of 1,000 coaches out there, 90% of them do not know this is on the books.”

Switzer said Tuesday from his home in Norman, Okla., that he gave Mack Brown a $30,000 supplement when he hired Brown as offensive coordinator in 1984.

“I hired Mack Brown from Appalachian State and bumped his salary from $60,000 to $90,000. I paid Mack Brown from my pocket. I had him on my radio and TV shows, so he earned it,” said Switzer, who coached the Sooners from 1973-88.

“But does that help you beat anybody? It is ridiculous. I gave secretaries and GAs (graduate assistant coaches) $1,000 each at Christmas. They don’t get paid enough.”

Switzer, who won three national championships at Oklahoma, said he was never aware that the supplements were in violation of NCAA rules. But he said after NCAA officials explained the rule to him, he understood why it exists.

“It’s simple,” he said. “They don’t want slush funds.”