New University of Arizona head coach Ben Loorz will begin his tenure leading the Wildcats with a $165,000 base salary that will climb to $175,000 by the 2028-2029 season as part of a 5-year, $845,000 contract.
That is within range of the most recent employment agreement for outgoing head coach Augie Busch, who had a base salary of $175,000 per year in his most recent two-year contract that ran from July 1, 2022 through June 30, 2024. Those were the sixth and seventh years of Busch’s term as head coach of the program.
Loorz’s deal also comes with reimbursement for moving costs, up to 10% of his base salary and a $15,000 buyout of his contract at UNLV.
Loorz’s incentives are similar to Busch’s as well. They include up to $7,500 per team for a perfect multi-year APR and up to $7,500 per team for GPA, with a maximum academic performance bonus of up to $15,000 in any given year. The most-recently available data indicate that the head coach would have received the maximum bonus in recent seasons.
Loorz would also receive $5,000 for each Big 12 team title; plus $5,000 for each NCAA top 10 team finish, $7,500 for each NCAA top 4 team finish, or $15,000 for each NCAA Championship.
Arizona’s last top 10 finishes at the NCAA Championships were in 2014, where the men finished 7th and the women finished 8th.
Other perks include a vehicle stipend or university-provided car; free tickets for Arizona varsity home competitions, travel costs for his family to the NCAA Championships, and a country club or health club membership.
Termination/Buyouts
- If the university were to terminate the contract with cause because of violations of NCAA or Big 12 regulations, Loorz would owe $100,000. This becomes especially important because of a number of issues with NCAA violations for the university, including two NCAA investigations and sanctions for violations within the diving program since 2017 and significant issues within the basketball program that included the arrest of an assistant coach.
- If the university terminates the agreement without cause, it owes any accrued incentives, plus the remainder of the base salary – mitigated by any salary earned by the coach in a new job.
- A buyout clause if Loorz terminates the contract early and accepts a job within 12 months will require him to pay $82,500 if terminated in the first two years of the contract, $41,200 in years three and four, and $25,600 if terminated in year five.
Loorz takes over an Arizona team that has been struggling in recent seasons, with the men’s team coming off recording their lowest finish since 1976 in 2023, placing 32nd at the Men’s NCAA Championships. The Wildcats were 27th in 2024, though 13 of 19 points came from diving.
The women’s team didn’t score a point at the 2024 NCAA Championships and has only scored a combined 7.5 swimming points over the past four national championship meets.
So whose transferring from UNLV to UA to follow the coach
Can someone do a recap on why Arizona has declined since their 2008 NCAA title?
I don’t think it’s that complicated. Eric H had personal problems that he couldn’t work through, Rick D made a better assistant than head coach, and Augie B was an unmitigated disaster.
It’s basically exactly the same as the Auburn story. Now we’ll see if Ben Loorz is Ryan Wochomurka or not.
Without commenting on Auburn, you summed Arizona up perfectly. It’s a shame because Eric and Rick were both good people and good coaches.
Easy!
Rhody was there in 2008 and he’s not now
Former AD Greg Byrne hates swimming. Luckily for Arizona he’s now at Alabama 🤣
Curious how the UA staff will round out now that his staff knows he has a 5-year runway. Will Roric want to stay seeing as how the associate head role was given to Peter? Amanda has huge upside potential, so he’ll probably want to keep her. Lastly, no chance he will keep the Busch handout, Chad Castillo, being the coach on a college deck with the least amount coaching and personal athletic experience.
My expectation is that Roric will move on and Amanda will stay.
Roric is moving to SMU as the Associate Head coach for the Men
Though I wish head coaching salaries were higher my main issue is with assistant coach salaries. Most are in the 50-80k range and when you account for the amount of hours assistants put in that just sucks.
At D2/D3 schools, assistants are making 27-30K putting in the same hours. So, 50 to 80k looks really good to them.
But when you account for the importance of the job and realize many healthcare workers, teachers, police, fire and EMS workers make a similar wage………maybe its not so bad
lol. They all are completely insanely underpaid. None of those professions make anywhere near what they should but saying it’s not bad is insanity
It is bad. See my post above. But many will simply accept it to get the foot in the door – “I am a college coach! I am a college coach! Woohoo. Woohoo!” So schools pay low. When the applicants dry up (pardon the pun) then wages will actually change – or the school will drop the program(s) because they’re unwilling to spend more and didn’t get any applicants to work on the cheap.
Absolutely sucks. Low pay for high workload. However ….
The market drives the wages, as in any industry. In the market of college swim coaching, particularly assistants, and even more so at non-power conference level teams, they will get applicants/hires to accept that kind of money. Hence, there is no driver for change. Schools have zero incentive to offer more.
I’ve commented on this topic before – because most colleges will hire inexperienced, inexpensive labor (in Olympic sports) they will continue to have coach behavior issues, athlete behavior issues and a generally poor product. When the only driver of sound decisions is tickets/revenue sports (football and basketball) where the real money is spent and top quality candidates are sought, the… Read more »
So the same as he was making at UNLV?