The Texas Longhorns have proved many times over that money is no object for them. They showed it once again with the hiring of Jim Schlossnagle away from Texas A&M.
Texas on Tuesday hired Schlossnagle as their new head baseball coach, according to a few reports. The news comes a day after the Longhorns announced they were parting ways with David Pierce.
Not only did Texas take A&M’s coach, but they also distracted the school the day of the Aggies’ championship game against Tennessee at the College World Series on Monday night, which the Aggies lost 6-5.
Schlossnagle just finished his third season as Texas A&M’s head coach after previously coaching at TCU. He was making $1.35 million per year at A&M, and his buyout is double that amount as a penalty for leaving for an in-state school.
Texas is paying a $2.7 million buyout to get Schlossnagle and also reportedly will at least double the coach’s salary. Chip Brown says Schlossnagle’s salary at Texas could be around the $3 million per year mark.
So you have the $2.7 million buyout to get Schlossnagle, and then an annual salary around that amount or more, and on top of all that, Texas owes previous coach Pierce a buyout of nearly $1.85 million (though they may have negotiated down that number).
None of this amounts to big money when compared with salaries and the money involved in college football. But when you’re talking about college baseball, throwing around $4.5 million for buyouts and a few million per year for a coach is huge money.
Keep in mind, Vanderbilt’s Tim Corbin has been the highest-paid coach in college baseball at around $2.45 million per year. Texas is set to surpass that with Schlossnagle. Leave it to the Longhorns to reset the financial market for baseball coaches.
