Former Penn head football coach taking over Columbia job

[Ken711]

Reports are that a final deal for a large salary has former Penn head coach Al Bagnoli taking the Columbia head coaching job.  Bagnoli retired at Penn this season after 23 seasons with only 2 losing seasons.

[CAS]

Columbia is making a huge financial investment to improve its football program.  Andy...

[Ken711]

Columbia is making a huge financial investment to improve its football program.  Andy...

Exactly.  If they become competitive with Bagnoli, I'd hate to see Cornell take over the annual Ivy League's worst team role. It's not as if Cornell has challenged for the Ivy Title in over 20 years now.

[billhoward]

Bagnoli is the real deal. Thinking about whether Cornell could have had him: He was at Union until 1991 then at Penn. In 1989 and 1991 he made it to the D-III title game at Union; 1990 was a 9-1 season; three losses in 3 years. 1991  was Jim Hofher's second year at Cornell and he was doing well. But after Maxie Baughan departed in 1988, there was a one year coach, then Hofher. So if he was available in 1991, maybe he was available the year or two before.

Is it possible nothing could move Columbia football to Ivy contender status?

[billhoward]

Columbia is making a huge financial investment to improve its football program.  Andy...

How do we know? Is there anything other than Columbia saying it is committed to better teams and hiring a new football coach probably for more than the predecessor?

[CAS]

Can't imagine Bagnoli comes cheap, or would take on the job without a big financial commitment from the administration re hiring a staff, etc.

[Jim Hyla]

Reports are that a final deal for a large salary has former Penn head coach Al Bagnoli taking the Columbia head coaching job.  Bagnoli retired at Penn this season after 23 seasons with only 2 losing seasons.

I don't care that much about football, although I've had season tickets for 37 years, but would you post links to some of those reports that talk about salary.

[billhoward]

Reports are that a final deal for a large salary has former Penn head coach Al Bagnoli taking the Columbia head coaching job.  Bagnoli retired at Penn this season after 23 seasons with only 2 losing seasons.

I don't care that much about football, although I've had season tickets for 37 years, but would you post links to some of those reports that talk about salary.

Browse message boards, student papers, and the NYT/WSJ, you'll see reports that an Ivy football coach's salary is in the vicinity of $250,000. Coaches of high visibility sports are said to be paid in the area of $150,000-$200,000. As it should be: A gifted professor such as Isaac Kramnick (in the same salary ballpark, most likely) gives a great lecture on what made Cornell a world-class university. But I gotta say that when the team of Mike Schafer, certainly a highly compensated coach in Ivy terms, took down Harvard in OT at senior night last year, that was money well spent, too.

There are reports the Ivy's highest paid coach, any sport, is Tommy Amaker, Harvard basketball, somewhere between $500,000 and $1,000,000. That may include income from camps and supplemental salary payments from alumni/boosters. At some schools, the supplemental payments, aboveboard, let a school say it pays no coach more than the highest-paid academic. A supplement from alumni might be how Columbia affords / pays an Al Bagnoli if the head coach's endowed position doesn't distribute more than, say, $275,000. Which is what Nick Saban grosses every two weeks at Alabama.

The Brown Daily Herald wrote on this in 2011, citing a league report on coaching salaries showing Brown the lowest and Cornell the highest. http://www.browndailyherald.com/2011/04/12/brown-head-coaches-paid-22-percent-less-than-league-average/ It's not clear if this is the simple average or median average; the story uses both terms. In addition to football and basketball that all Ivies pay above the average, Cornell is probably paying well above average in men's hockey, lacrosse and wrestling, so if that's a simple (mean) average will skew high without any benefit to the swimming or volleyball coach.

Ivy coach average salaries, 2010 or 2011, high to low (unclear if mean or median average]
Cornell
Yale
Princeton
Columbia
Penn
Harvard
Dartmouth
Brown

Brown's low pay for coaches might be confusing cause and effect. It might be Brown just sucks, so the university figures, why toss good money after bad. Don't believe the Daily Herald touched on that.

The salary issue in the Ivies may take a back seat to a discussion on the need for and cost of big (130-yard, high roof) indoor training facilities. The terrible winter in the Northeast should have all the Ivies thinking about a) an inflatable bubble over a field for the winter months and b) what about something simple in the way of a 2,500? 5,000? seat permanent structure with a roof that would accommodate every field sport for every game except a handful of football games. I believe Harvard, Princeton and Penn have bubbles or will. Penn's is on Penn Park, its other-than-Franklin Field fields: http://www.pennathletics.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=1700&ATCLID=205367231 These are marginally suited to no more than a couple hundred spectators if the practice dome becomes a game site. These domes will need to set aside time for play by students if they're going to get student support. Or build two domes.

Meanwhile, for Andy Noel-doubters, give him credit for making salary less of an issue when you're trying to draw a coach with a professional spouse to Ithaca. Only Dartmouth is a more-challenging place for a two-income couple.

[Jim Hyla]

Reports are that a final deal for a large salary has former Penn head coach Al Bagnoli taking the Columbia head coaching job.  Bagnoli retired at Penn this season after 23 seasons with only 2 losing seasons.

I don't care that much about football, although I've had season tickets for 37 years, but would you post links to some of those reports that talk about salary.

Browse message boards, student papers, and the NYT/WSJ, you'll see reports that an Ivy football coach's salary is in the vicinity of $250,000. Coaches of high visibility sports are said to be paid in the area of $150,000-$200,000. As it should be: A gifted professor such as Isaac Kramnick (in the same salary ballpark, most likely) gives a great lecture on what made Cornell a world-class university. But I gotta say that when the team of Mike Schafer, certainly a highly compensated coach in Ivy terms, took down Harvard in OT at senior night last year, that was money well spent, too.

There are reports the Ivy's highest paid coach, any sport, is Tommy Amaker, Harvard basketball, somewhere between $500,000 and $1,000,000. That may include income from camps and supplemental salary payments from alumni/boosters. At some schools, the supplemental payments, aboveboard, let a school say it pays no coach more than the highest-paid academic. A supplement from alumni might be how Columbia affords / pays an Al Bagnoli if the head coach's endowed position doesn't distribute more than, say, $275,000. Which is what Nick Saban grosses every two weeks at Alabama.

The Brown Daily Herald wrote on this in 2011, citing a league report on coaching salaries showing Brown the lowest and Cornell the highest. http://www.browndailyherald.com/2011/04/12/brown-head-coaches-paid-22-percent-less-than-league-average/ It's not clear if this is the simple average or median average; the story uses both terms. In addition to football and basketball that all Ivies pay above the average, Cornell is probably paying well above average in men's hockey, lacrosse and wrestling, so if that's a simple (mean) average will skew high without any benefit to the swimming or volleyball coach.

Ivy coach average salaries, 2010 or 2011, high to low (unclear if mean or median average]
Cornell
Yale
Princeton
Columbia
Penn
Harvard
Dartmouth
Brown

Brown's low pay for coaches might be confusing cause and effect. It might be Brown just sucks, so the university figures, why toss good money after bad. Don't believe the Daily Herald touched on that.

The salary issue in the Ivies may take a back seat to a discussion on the need for and cost of big (130-yard, high roof) indoor training facilities. The terrible winter in the Northeast should have all the Ivies thinking about a) an inflatable bubble over a field for the winter months and b) what about something simple in the way of a 2,500? 5,000? seat permanent structure with a roof that would accommodate every field sport for every game except a handful of football games. I believe Harvard, Princeton and Penn have bubbles or will. Penn's is on Penn Park, its other-than-Franklin Field fields: http://www.pennathletics.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=1700&ATCLID=205367231 These are marginally suited to no more than a couple hundred spectators if the practice dome becomes a game site. These domes will need to set aside time for play by students if they're going to get student support. Or build two domes.

Meanwhile, for Andy Noel-doubters, give him credit for making salary less of an issue when you're trying to draw a coach with a professional spouse to Ithaca. Only Dartmouth is a more-challenging place for a two-income couple.

Thanks, but I was trying to get specific info on what Bagnoli's "large salary" at Columbia meant.

[CAS]

Jake Novak who has a Columbia football blog wrote today that Bagnoli's salary will easily dwarf what all other Ivy football coaches earn.

[Ken711]

Jake Novak who has a Columbia football blog wrote today that Bagnoli's salary will easily dwarf what all other Ivy football coaches earn.

There are were also suppose to be $3+ million in athletic improvements commitment as part of Bagnoli's hiring.  Hey Andy, how about those condemned West Stands and a bubble enclosure over Schoellkopf Field for winter practice for Cornell athletic teams like lacrosse, soccer and football.

[billhoward]

Al Bagnoli hiring announced Monday 2/23: http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/12371596/columbia-lions-hire-al-bagnoli-former-penn-quakers-coach

NEW YORK -- Columbia has hired Al Bagnoli, who retired as Penn's coach 13 weeks ago after a long and successful run with the Quakers, to try to revive the Ivy League's worst football program. Columbia announced the hiring of Bagnoli on Monday. The 62-year-old Bagnoli was at Penn for 23 years, won nine Ivy League titles and had an overall record of 148-80, including 112-49 in the conference. ... Bagnoli's last league title came three seasons ago, but his last two teams combined to win six games [i.e. 6-14]. ... Columbia hasn't had a winning season since 1996 and has not had a coach leave the school with a winning record since 1929.

The new athletic director is a marketing guru from IMG. Question is, is Columbia ever going to sustain a serious sports operation when the athletic facilities (field sports) are six miles or 25 subway minutes away? My guess: As NYC improves as a livable city, Columbia will be more attractive to a wider range of students. It's not the first place you think of for playing football. Lots of big schools have their fields at a distance from campus, such as Yale.