Aaron Doster-USA TODAY Sports
The strength and conditioning coach is an important part of any football team. At the University of Iowa—a public university—they show their dedication to longtime coach Chris Doyle with their checkbook.According to reporters Chris Leistikow and Steve Berkowitz, the Big Ten school will pay the coach a base salary of $595,000 in the one-year period beginning July 1. It represents a 15.5% raise over his previous annual salary of $515,000.That may be a pittance compared to the $4,075,000 annual salary of head coach Kirk Ferentz—guaranteed through 2020!—but it is the highest going rate for a strength and conditioning coach in the country, per USA TODAY:"Doyle is being paid more than double the amounts going to many of his Big Ten Conference peers, and it's $70,000 more than what reigning national champion Alabama's Scott Cochran is being paid this season.It's also greater than what 29 FBS public-school head coaches made last season in basic pay."That might seem like a lot of money, but keep in mind, we're talking about Iowa City standard-of-living, here. This guy has to support his family in the fifth-largest city in Iowa, not some podunk town like Dubuque.Power Five football programs rarely pay their strength and conditioning coach on par with offensive and defensive coordinators, but Iowa athletic coordinator Gary Barta understands that Doyle develops far more than just the players' bodies:"Most of the people who follow our program know that what's very important to Kirk is student-athlete development—physically, mentally, leadership. He relies heavily on Chris' role in that."Should we really surprised by all this? A big-time college football program is a vast money-making machine, and the strength and conditioning coach is responsible for keeping the machine parts (players) grinding along as smoothly as possible before they are eventually replaced and tossed onto the scrap heap. Maybe Iowa is just ahead of the curve.[USA Today]
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