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Advertise Your Business On TechSideline.com!

TechSideline.com has come a long way since its conception in 1996. We are the #1 media source and community covering Virginia Tech athletics; producing an average of 110,000 unique viewers and over 7 million page views each month.

We reach a coveted demographic (you know who you are) 24/7, 12 months out of the year. Furthermore, TechSideline.com provides a powerful advertising opportunity, leveraging our unique two-way medium to clearly and precisely communicate our sponsor’s marketing goals to our loyal community. This permission marketing approach has resulted in unprecedented marketing success for all our sponsors, "brick and mortar" and dot-com alike.

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Seth Greenberg's Contract Extension
Plus an Update on ACC Men's Basketball Coaching Salaries
by Will Stewart, TechSideline.com

In February of 2004, we ran a TSLMail that listed the salaries and total compensation for ACC head coaches, including men's basketball coaches, and it revealed that VT's Seth Greenberg was at the bottom of the list in total compensation at the time. With Greenberg's recent contract extension and raise, plus some coaching changes and other contract extensions in the ACC, it's a topic worth revisiting.

Greenberg's total compensation when he was hired by VT was $429,000, according to a TechSideline.com News and Notes update from April 3, 2003. Greenberg has received a couple of yearly 5% raises since then to his salary of $158,000, plus he recently signed a contract extension that will take him through 2010-11 and gave him a $50,000 raise in the "retention incentives" category of his total pay. (This was on top of a $10,000 raise in that category that he received after the 2003-04 season.) Greenberg's salary for the upcoming year, his third in the program, is now $174,211, and his total compensation is about $505,000, according to a recent Roanoke Times article.

That $500k+ still wouldn't get Greenberg out of the ACC's compensation basement, per the February 2004 figures, where the next-lowest figure to Greenberg was GT's Paul Hewitt, with a $600,000 total package (reference TSLMail #116, February Feb. 13, 2004). But a number of things have happened since that 2004 article that shifted the landscape a little bit:

• Miami fired Perry Clark, who was getting paid $750,000 a year, and replaced him with Frank Haith in 2004, at $350,000 per year (per numerous articles), less money than Greenberg was making at the time. Haith recently got a contract extension, and persistent Google and Yahoo searches would turn up only the dreaded "financial terms were not disclosed." A source in Miami reports that Haith's new deal is worth $600,000 annually (and that his previous contract was actually worth $450,000), so Haith got a significant raise.
  
  
• Paul Hewitt's GT team made a run at the 2004 national championship, and Hewitt was rewarded with a contract extension that increased his total compensation from $600k to $1,000,000, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, vaulting Hewitt up the ladder of ACC coaching compensation, into the top five.
  
  
• Virginia fired $900,000-a-year coach Pete Gillen, and is rumored to be ready to pay up to $2 million (Doug Doughty said it, not me!).
  
  
• Boston College coach Al Skinner's salary has increased from $368k to $413k, according to Boston Magazine, but darned if his total compensation still can't be found anywhere on the 'Net.

Since it's Friday afternoon, and our TSLMail deadline is approaching, we'll assume that everyone else in the ACC has stayed roughly equal to what they were in February 2004. This would include Duke's Coach K, Roy Williams of UNC, Gary Williams of MD, Skip Prosser at Wake Forest, NC State's Herb Sendek, FSU's Leonard Hamilton, and Oliver Purnell at Clemson.

Those changes and information update the ACC coaching salaries and total packages to the following:

At first, the $50,000 raise given to Seth Greenberg seems like a slap in the face, since he was named ACC Coach of the Year, and even with the raise, he's swimming at the bottom of the ACC pool. But on the flip side, he has received nearly $80,000 dollars in increases, or a bump of about 17%, in just two years.

And it's always best to be cautious in these matters. Greenberg has had two good years, but what's unknown at this point is how his presence will shape the program long-term. He may rocket VT to national prominence, or his style may wear on his players and assistants, causing the program to collapse in the fourth or fifth year of his tenure. Or, more than likely, something in between. You never know.

Ideally, Greenberg would have gotten a bigger raise than Haith, but the Miami athletic administration has never been one to be fiscally responsible or cautious, and comparisons of private school Miami to public university Virginia Tech are not necessarily fair. Note that the known salaries for private school employees Coach K. of Duke and Al Skinner of BC are significantly higher than the salaries for public university employees Roy Williams of UNC, Leonard Hamilton of FSU, etc.

If Greenberg continues to have success, then more increases in pay will come. But what's equally important is that his assistants and support staff be properly compensated, too, because they're the glue that can often hold a program together, and turnover among the assistants can be hard on a program.

It's a balancing act for VT Athletic Director Jim Weaver. I personally would have been inclined to give Greenberg a $100,000 raise, because there's a psychological boost with a six-figure raise that isn't there with something less. But overall, Weaver's prudence can't be criticized heavily.

Brain Injury Services of SWVA and Brain Injury Services, Inc. in Northern Virginia are offering Hokie fans a chance to win a truly unique prize: a "game-winning" football signed by the Virginia Tech football coaching staff and players.

The football up for grabs is the football being carried by Cedric Humes in the picture above, during Cedric's game-clinching 37-yard TD run against Virginia this past season. The ball was taken from the field -- "It still has dirt on it," yours truly was recently told -- and later signed by Virginia Tech coaches and players.

The ball is now being raffled off. Only 600 raffle tickets are being sold, and each ticket costs $100. To make things even better, the cost of your raffle ticket is tax-deductible as a charitable donation to Brain Injury Services of SWVA and Brain Injury Services, Inc.

These two organizations are the only two case management programs serving kids with brain injuries in the state of Virginia. The services needed by brain injury survivors are scarce, and these two programs make a difference in people's lives. Proceeds from the raffle will be used to fund desperately-needed case managers at these two organizations.

Interested? Here are the details:

• Prize: One Signed Game-Winning Virginia Tech football from the 2004 Virginia Tech/UVa football game.
  
  
• Raffle Ticket Cost: $100
  
  
• Drawing Date: April 16th 2005 (you do not need to be present to win)
  
  
• Tax-Deductible Amount of Raffle Ticket Purchase: $100 (unless you win, of course!)
  
  
• How to Purchase: Call or email Brain Injury Services Inc. of Northern Virginia (703-451-8881, email [email protected]) or The Jason Foundation in Radford, Virginia (540-633-2225, email [email protected]) for details on how to purchase a ticket. When you purchase a ticket, you'll receive a ticket stub and a receipt for tax purposes.

The Virginia Tech football program and head coach Frank Beamer (click the link to see a letter written by Beamer) are behind this effort to raise much-needed funds. Buy your ticket and get your chance at winning the football pictured above!

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As an additional bonus, all subscribers will receive a 10% discount on all purchases made at Techlocker.com, our online store providing Hokie-related apparel and gift items. If that's not enough, you should know that your subscription will help support your favorite website, TechSideline.com.

For more info on TechSideline Pass, and to subscribe, click here.

-- Will Stewart

Scrimmage Notes
by TechSideline.com, 3/31/05, 12:10 am
Observers of Wednesday's scrimmage came away impressed with two players: Marcus Vick and Branden Ore. Find out what our insiders had to say about those two, plus get some descriptions of the action in the latest TSL Pass spring football update.
in TSL Pass

Tourney Thoughts
by Jim Alderson, 3/30/05, 3:10 pm
The college basketball season winds down to a precious few games, namely the three that will comprise the Final Four. This weekend will certainly have to go some distance to match the sheer excitement that was generated by last weekend’s Elite Eight. In one of the more remarkable examples of why so many people follow the NCAA Tournament and why CBS lays out big bucks to occasionally break up the sales pitches with a little basketball, we were treated to three of the best regional finals since the NCAA decided that Mr. Naismith’s game might amount to something.
in TSL Pass

Bryan Randall Rookie Diary #5: Randall's Confidence Surges at Pro Day Number Two
by TechSideline.com, 3/29/05, 12:10 pm
There weren't as many teams there for the second Pro Day as there were the first Pro Day. There were about nine teams compared to about the 20 that were there the first time. The only coach I believe was there that was there the first time was the coach that kind of ran the whole thing, and that was a guy from the Jaguars. There were no head coaches there, no GMs or anybody like that. Mainly it was just recruiters for this area from the teams.
in TSL Pass

A Gym Rat's Notebook: Gearing Up for Next Year
by Elijah Kyle, 3/28/05, 4:00 pm
The most bothersome aspect of March basketball is the suddenness with which your season can end, especially if your last game was one that you would love to repeat, so as to wipe away the bad taste in your mouth. That is surely the case after the Memphis Tigers abruptly ended the 2004-05 season for Virginia Tech, but not before energizing fans with promise that sunnier days are ahead.
in TSL Pass

Notes From Friday's and Saturday's Practices
by TechSideline.com, 3/27/05, 1:40 am
The Hokies held two more practices, a shorts-and-helmets practice on Friday and the first practice in pads Saturday. Find out who got some attention Friday when he stopped by the practice, why the Jamerson Center windows are in danger, who looks good … and who got juked out of his shoes.
in TSL Pass