Should universities like the University of Southern California (USC) base their
ID: 470811 • Letter: S
Question
Should universities like the University of Southern California (USC) base their coaching salaries entirely on market considerations? Or should they pay the coaches of men's and women's sports comparable salaries based upon experience, skill, and performance? (At least 500 word reply)
Please read the below case to answer this question:
“Hoop Dreams”
IN BASKETBALL, TALENT plus Hard work EQUALS success. That’s an equation that holds true for women as well as men, and in recent years, dedicated female athletes have raised women’s basketball to new heights and won the allegiance of many new fans.70
But what about their coaches? Do any obstacles stand between them and their dreams? Marianne Stanley didn’t think so when she began coaching women’s basketball for the University of Southern California, where she earned $64,000 a year—a fair sum, one might think, but less than half that of her counterpart, George Raveling, who coached the men’s team. True, Raveling had been coaching for thirty-one years, had been an assistant on the U.S. Olympic team, and was twice named coach of the year. But Stanley was no slouch. She had been a head coach for sixteen years and won three national championships. In her last two years at USC, she had win–loss records of 23–8 and 22–7, which compared favorably with Raveling’s 19–10 and 24–6.
So when her initial four-year contract expired, Marianne Stanley sought pay parity with Raveling. Stanley knew that Raveling was also earning tens of thousands of dollars in perks, but she was willing to overlook that and settle for an equal base salary of $135,000. Instead, USC offered Stanley a three- year contract starting at $88,000 and increasing to $100,000. When she rejected that offer, USC countered with a one-year contract for $96,000. Stanley declined the offer and left USC, her hoop dreams diminished, although she later began coach- ing at UC Berkeley, where her salary was equivalent to that of the men’s coach.
For his part, George Raveling didn’t mind Stanley’s making as much money as he did. But he understood why USC paid him more. He was, after all, a hot property, and if USC was going to prevent his being lured away by some other university trying to boost its basketball program, then it had to pay him a high salary. By contrast, Marianne Stanley didn’t have any other job offers.
Too bad, one might say, but that’s how the market works in a capitalist society. But what if the market itself is discriminatory? Defenders of comparable worth argue that it is and that coaches like Stanley can’t negotiate for comparable salaries because women’s basketball isn’t valued as highly as men’s. And it’s college administrators, they argue, who are to blame for that. As one feminist puts it:
The women didn’t get the advertising and marketing dollars. They didn’t get the PR. Then when fans weren’t showing up, the TV stations weren’t carrying the games and other universities weren’t fighting over the best coaches, administrators told the women that, because they and their sport didn’t draw as much attention as men, they shouldn’t be paid as much.
In response, defenders of USC deny that it or any other university is responsible for the fact that men’s sports are big revenue earners and women’s are not. The higher pay for those who coach men simply reflects that social and cultural reality, which is something college administrators have no control over. If someone like Marianne Stanley wants to enter the big leagues, then she should coach men.
Still, many find it distressing that even though 40 percent of American athletic participants are female, their sports get less respect and less attention—to be specific, less than 5 percent of all media coverage and only 1.62 percent of sporting airtime on big networks.71 Shouldn’t universities try to combat this, at least by paying equivalent salaries to the coaches of male and female teams?
Update
Sadly, sometimes even those who have fought against discrimination can discriminate against others. Just a few years after Marianne Stanley assumed her head coaching position at UC Berkeley, one of the assistant coaches, Sharrona Alexander, filed suit against the university, alleging that Stanley told her to get an abortion or lose her job. Stanley denied the abortion allegation, but admitted that she did ask Alexander to resign because of her pregnancy. Either way, a champion of women’s rights was guilty of trampling on someone else’s hoop dreams. Ironically, Stanley herself played college basketball when she was pregnant (returning to practice eleven days after her daughter was born) and went on, single and with a toddler, to coach Old Dominion University to three national championships. Moreover, some sports commenta- tors believe that, far from being a handicap, motherhood can give a coach an edge in recruiting because the parents of prospective recruits prefer their daughters to be coached by women who, when they say that they treat their teams as family, know what they are talking about. In addition, Arizona State coach Charli Turner Thorne says, because “you’re taking young ladies at a very formative time, you have to play the parent role.” She adds, “There’s absolutely no doubt [motherhood] makes me a better coach.”
Explanation / Answer
The basis of the coaching salaries should not be entirely based on the market considerations, and should be comparable for both men’s and women’s sports, based on the coach’s experience and performance.
The coaches of men’s sports teams earn as much as double of what the female sports coaches are earning in the country. In the past years the average increase in the pay of men’s teams have increased by 40%, and women’s team’s coaches pay have increased on an average of 28% only. Most women’s sport coaches are earning almost half or a third of what their counterparts are earning.
This discrepancy should not be there in the coaching salaries being offered at universities like University of Southern California, firstly because of the legal liabilities of the university. As per the Equal Pay Act (1963), the salaries for coaches of both men’s and women’s sports should be comparable, and also the other components of the compensation like the perks and benefits should be comparable. Since, equal pay is required for comparable work, the salaries of the coaches should be decided based on their experience and performance of their teams, and not based on their gender.
Beyond the legal liabilities of the university, paying salaries based on the experience of the coach and the team’s performance and based on the coach’s gender is an ethical responsibility for the university. With increasing sports participation of women population of the country, the universities responsibility to promote women’s sports through a fair pay structure further increases many folds. As the case clearly states, that around 40 percent of American athlete population is female, still female sports get less than 5 percent of media coverage and 1.62 percent of airtime on big networks. Universities are organizations that form the basis of the youth personality, hence play a huge role in affecting the future of the society, hence universities have an additional responsibility to become catalysts of this change, and support and promote female athletes, starting with paying salaries to the coaches representing women teams, equivalent or comparable to their male counterparts.