One of the biggest perks of working John Calipari in the midst of his domination of college basketball, is you can be sure of a windfall of cash coming to you in one way or another. Kentucky has done a ton of winning most of the last handful of seasons, and as a result, it’s coaching staff’s value has continued to skyrocket. The time has now come for the help to receive it’s proper appreciation.
A huge part of churning out one-and-done players at the rate Kentucky has been able to lies in developing talented, but raw players rapidly. Assistant coaches, Kenny Payne, John Robic, and Tony Barbee have all had parts in Calipari’s tremendous success and as a result, have all received extensions sporting fat bonuses.
Kyle Tucker of The Courier-Journal out of Lexington, KY fills in the details:
Payne signed a three-year deal that expires June 30, 2018, and is worth a total of $2.1 million. He’ll make $650,000 next season, $700,000 in 2016-17 and $750,000 in 2017-18. Robic and Barbee both have one-year deals that expire on June 30, 2016. Robic’s is worth $415,000, a raise of $40,000 from his previous contract. Barbee will make $375,000, the same as the assistant he replaced, Barry “Slice” Rohrssen, but a significant bump from the $150,000 Barbee made as special assistant to the head coach last season.
For his part, Kenny Payne will be making more money than 22 head coaches whose teams made it to last season’s NCAA Tournament.
You can say what you want about John Calipari and his methods…a nice clip of players AND staff that develop under him are getting paid, there’s no debating that.
[h/t The Score]
