Coaches should not be paid.

[Cornfed Pig]

"Amateur competition is a bedrock principle of college athletics and the NCAA. Maintaining amateurism is crucial to preserving an academic environment in which acquiring a quality education is the first priority. In the collegiate model of sports, the young men and women competing on the field or court are students first, athletes second."  -- NCAA homepage (and NCAA litigating position in basically every case they've been in)

No one affiliated with a college athletic club, regardless of sport, should be paid a salary. Exceptions should be made for the following personnel: referees, scorekeepers, media, maintenance/groundskeeping, and other third-party personnel. 

Maintaining amateurism and paying coaches a salary are mutually exclusive.

Preserving an academic environment in which acquiring a quality education is the first priority and paying coaches are mutually exclusive.

Being a student first, and an athlete second and paying coaches are mutually exclusive.

Prove me wrong. (Protip: you can't)

[HiggiePiggy]

Should teachers be paid?  Some play college sports to further there education of which sport they play in to become professionals at that sport. So if coaches shouldn't be paid neither should college professors. I do believe they should reduce the pay of coaches and in my opinion use all profit from sports to reduce the costs of school tuition for schools.

[Cornfed Pig]

Should teachers be paid?  Some play college sports to further there education of which sport they play in to become professionals at that sport. So if coaches shouldn't be paid neither should college professors. I do believe they should reduce the pay of coaches and in my opinion use all profit from sports to reduce the costs of school tuition for schools.

"Professionals at that sport?"  What does this mean - they want to play pro ball or become coaches themselves?  If coaches, taking pay away from college-level coaches reduces that interest significantly. If they're interested in coaching high school, then just be (1) good at your sport; (2) reasonably good at communication; and (3) not a criminal.  You don't need an "education" for that.

If they want to fill various personnel jobs in NFL / MLB / NBA, again, be good at your sport and likeable. You don't need a degree for running fast, jumping high, and drawing plays.

[Hogs958]

So the groundskeeper should make more than the coach? Brilliant.

[ricepig]

So the groundskeeper should make more than the coach? Brilliant.

I think brilliant is over stating it a little.....

[Cornfed Pig]

So the groundskeeper should make more than the coach? Brilliant.

Not an argument (brilliant)

[Hogs958]

Not an argument (brilliant)

damn your mind games

[clutch]

"Professionals at that sport?"  What does this mean - they want to play pro ball or become coaches themselves?  If coaches, taking pay away from college-level coaches reduces that interest significantly. If they're interested in coaching high school, then just be (1) good at your sport; (2) reasonably good at communication; and (3) not a criminal.  You don't need an "education" for that.

If they want to fill various personnel jobs in NFL / MLB / NBA, again, be good at your sport and likeable. You don't need a degree for running fast, jumping high, and drawing plays.

Apparently you've never coached anything. There's a lot more to coaching than being good at your sport or running fast, jumping high, and drawing plays. Some of the best coaches I know were terrible at their sports.

Coaching is an extremely hard job. There's a reason these guys are paid so much. Sure, their salaries have become a little too inflated, but they deserve to be paid well. It takes an exceptional coach to make a D1 level team successful. Very few people can actually do it, therefore there is a high demand for those who are the best. The success of the teams brings in massive amounts of revenue for the universities. Less successful teams would mean a lot less revenue, or even financial losses in some cases considering football programs are very expensive to run.

It's a job that requires many 80+ hour weeks out of the year. Probably many 100+ hour weeks. Nobody is going to do that for free because they couldn't afford to live. Like I said, there's a lot more to coaching than scribbling a few lines down on a piece of paper and calling it a play. There's hours worth of watching film to determine areas you can attack so that you can create that play, then there's hours worth of practicing and instruction to show the players how to execute that play, there's evaluating talent and recruiting, tons of travel to persuade those recruits to come to your school, there's hours and hours of managing the players by making sure they are all going to class and staying out of trouble, there's meetings with your staff, there's media obligations. The list goes on and on.