Teachers Are, of Course, Delighted to Help Out

So California football Coach Bruce Snyder is quitting to take a job at Arizona State for a $500,000-per-year-plus-incentives contract. Considering the misplaced value placed on professional and college football and basketball, it is probably a fair salary for a good athletic chief executive.

At a time when critics of American business management are decrying CEOs whose salaries are 100 times the pay of the average workers in the companies they manage, maybe we should consider the ratio of the boss’ pay to the “workers” on the football field and basketball court at Arizona State. By classifying them as students, minimum wage labor laws are evaded and the ratio must be unique.

If I were the head of the English, math or science departments at ASU, I would be inclined to lie to anyone who asked me what I did for a living. I’d say, “assistant to the athletic director,” knowing that my duties included trying to prevent some semiliterate academic underachievers from being disqualified to work in the fields or on the boards. There is no prestige in being a Ph.D. department head.

JOHN M. FRETER

Yucca Valley