Calhoun Gets Caught in a Salary Flap

Over and over I watched the stirring video last week of Jim Calhoun's news conference tirade -- it was 73 seconds of commercial-free entertainment gold -- in which the Connecticut men's basketball coach was asked to defend his $1.6 million salary in the face of the state's billion-dollar budget deficit.

As an alert, if somewhat prone, observer of the academic, athletic and financial culture of America, Couch Slouch learned several lessons, including some insight into Manny Ramírez, from Calhoun's testy exchange with activist Ken Krayeske:

After basketball games, basketball coaches only want to talk about basketball, you know, stuff like rebounding and turnovers and bad officiating. Krayeske ambushed Calhoun after the Huskies beat South Florida in regard to his salary -- that would be like grilling Al Capone after a gangland hit about his taxes. At least Krayeske had the good sense not to pester Calhoun following a U-Conn. loss.

Still, this notion that certain questions are off-limits at certain times is a bit shaky. Let's say, hypothetically, that Calhoun had robbed a string of convenience marts several days earlier. Would it be inappropriate to bring up these crimes at a postgame news conference? I think not.

Now, everyone knows where I stand on big-time intercollegiate athletics, but I am not going to run Calhoun up the flagpole for being paid to do his job. In fact, if I were offered $50,000 to sit atop a flagpole in the buff for an hour while humming "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree," I believe I'd be in line at the bank depositing the check before I considered the social ramifications of my work in a tough economy.

Calhoun is not responsible for the state's fiscal crisis, nor is he required to act on it. This is the way it works in the New World: They offer you the money, and you take it or leave it. He took it. This nation was built on the belief, "Whatever the market will bear," and, to this day, everyone from P.T. Barnum to Carrot Top has benefited from it.

Still, Calhoun should be sensitive to the fact that many of his fellow state workers are suffering cutbacks. The coach interrupted his inquisitor with the following words: "Not a dime back." Not a dime back? Who's advising him, Marie Antoinette? Workers earning far fewer dimes in Connecticut will be forced to make concessions, but the state's highest-profile and highest-paid employee says NOT A DIME BACK? Ouch.

The governor of Connecticut and two state legislators reprimanded Calhoun for his outburst. Oh, please. These are the people charged with running the state -- perhaps if they weren't so bent on making the state university's basketball team such an out-of-whack priority, they'd have the proper mind-set to do their own jobs better.

Where does education fit into all this? It never has. U-Conn. -- like many institutions of higher earning -- brings in 18-year-old athletes to sell tickets and TV rights to basketball games. In return, the athletes get a scholarship to a university in which they scarcely attend classes. This is known as March Madness, or as I like to call it, Societal Insanity.

Academics, as always, is incidental. Or as Calhoun put it in response to one of Krayeske's questions, "What was the take tonight?"

You see, from dawn to dusk from coast to coast, it is always about money; that's the way we keep score in America. Calhoun was hired to win and earn. "We make $12 million a year for this university," he exclaimed. I immediately thought: T-shirt opportunity! On the front, it says, "We make $12 million a year for this university," and, on the back, it says, "NOT A DIME BACK." You could move 5,000 of those babies at $17.95 each in a single day through Storrs alone.

How does Manny Ramírez figure in all this? He doesn't, except for the fact that, if he ever accepts the Los Angeles Dodgers' offer of $25 million for this season, we will be able to say that Manny makes $25 million a year for Manny, minus Scott Boras's commission.