New Jersey Is Still Adjusting to Spending Money on College Football

Really, Rutgers, their fans and New Jersey as a whole have to be cut a little slack. They've never had sustained success in college football and a commitment to building a program. It's all very new and confusing. Everyone is reacting a little slow to things.

The major paper in the state did a series on the state of Rutgers football, disclosing details about Coach Greg Schiano's contract.

One of the clauses was Schiano's $500,000 buyout. It was reported that if the stadium expansion wasn't completed by the 2009 season, Schiano could leave without paying the buyout. Another feature had a portion of Schiano's salary paid directly by the marketing firm that represents Rutgers football. That clause was apparently not made public in the contract.

Turns out neither was exactly true.

The escape clause for the buyout was never in the contract.

The Star-Ledger attributed the side deal to comments made by Rutgers University President Richard L. McCormick, who said, "We wanted to keep Greg Schiano as our coach."

[Rutgers Athletic Director Robert] Mulcahy denied Friday that an addendum excusing the $500,000 buyout figure existed.

"After many discussions and offers, the coach felt that the university was working with him and was committed to the completion of the stadium. Since such a drafted document was never executed, we never submitted it. There is no agreement amending the buyout," Mulcahy said.

Apparently the school president and the AD don't communicate real well. The president thought the clause was put in the contract, but ultimately it wasn't.

As for the other way of helping to pay Schiano's salary, it wasn't nearly the secret it seemed.

Referencing the content of previous university-issued press releases and one 2006 newspaper story, Mulcahy said recent revelations that part of football coach Greg Schiano's compensation comes from Nelligan Sports Marketing should not have come as a shock because the school's relationship with the firm had been previously documented.

"There's a press release talking about the contract and sponsorship, and it was in the Star-Ledger article," he said. The Star-Ledger of Newark, he pointed out, reported in 2006 that Rutgers had "used public money to pay Schiano $250,000 and $625,000 from Nelligan Corporate Sponsorship money" in the seven-year contract he signed in 2005.

Mulcahy has acknowledged that the university did not publicize a 2007 addendum to Schiano's contract - revealed in a Star-Ledger report last week - that includes a direct payment from Nelligan of $250,000. But he pointed yesterday to a 2005 press release announcing Schiano's seven-year contract that did not mention Nelligan by name, but that said "the new contract also increases Schiano's guaranteed income from private sources from $325,000 (in 2005) to $625,000 in 2006 and $750,000 by 2012."

So, Rutgers sort of made it known in older press releases that money was coming from other sources, and previous stories in the same paper had mentioned exactly who was paying it. No question that the Newark Star-Ledger should be embarrassed by that kind of mistake. What is the point of having archives and computer searches if they aren't used.

Naturally Rutgers fans are in righteous fury at the paper for having "dragged Rutgers through the mud." The standard fan response when a paper does a series that is anything less than flattering to a program. Sure, the stories got a lot of the other details right, but because they got parts wrong all is invalidated. Again, this is not unique. Every fanbase tends to have this sort of reaction.

The one thing that stands out, though, is the utter cluelessness from the Rutgers Athletic Department. The stories started breaking on July 22. It took until August 1 before Rutgers finally got around to making it known that the escape clause in the contract didn't exist. They took that long to find the old press releases and Star-Ledger articles talking about the money coming from Nelligan to help pay for Schiano's contract.

The athletic department never let the school president know about this, and allowed him to apologize over the lack of transparency and let him confirm a clause that never got into the final contract.

Even worse, because Rutgers took so long to respond to the stories they allowed politicians to get involved. Calls for investigation in the legislature and the governor saying he would support an "inquiry."

But Corzine, speaking to reporters Wednesday in Hillside, said he would strongly support such an inquiry.
...
Corzine faulted the athletic department's handling of what he called "the secret stuff."

"I think they made a mistake by not disclosing all the elements of the contract, or at least the compensation package," he said. "Everybody would have been better served if no one had to go through that. I don't know that there was anything illegal going on, but it would have been better in a public relations standpoint."

If Rutgers had responded in any sort of timely manner, this would have died quickly. They would have exposed a couple of the big "revelations" as non-stories and the credibility and spread of the series would have been severely diminished. Instead they let it fester for a week-and-a-half in the news cycle.