SPORTS:...Texas A&M Fires Head Football Coach Jimbo Fisher...Agrees To Pay $75 Million In Obscene Buyout...

 

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

McALLEN, Texas | He was the state's highest-paid employee with an annual salary of $9 million. Celebrated Jimbo Fisher is gone as head coach of Texas A&M, but he'll be fine.

Fired on Sunday, Fisher gets a $75 million buyout on his contract.

Not bad for a state employee at a state-funded university. The 58-year-old Fisher arrived at Aggieland with great promise six years ago. He leaves with an okay but mediocre 45-25 record during those half-dozen football campaigns.

By comparison, Texas Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian's pay is listed this year at $5.6 million.

It does make you wonder where the Aggies will get the cash to pay Fisher off. Theoretically, head football coaches at major schools at times pay themselves by making it to and winning a major bowl game at season's end. A national championship will cover an annual salary, sometimes for several years.

This particular payout is obscene.

But the Aggies thought they had a winner when they hired Fisher off the same head coaching job at Florida State, where he had compiled an excellent 83-23 record.

Is there any blowback from the taxpaying citizenry?

Nope.

Hefty coach payoffs are common in the college sport, mostly because some schools get antsy about losing or annoying fans and boosters when not meeting winning expectations.

Texas legislators rarely mess with school sports, especially football. But they certainly could. They could set salary limits at state schools like the University of Texas or Texas A&M or Texas Tech. Texas and Texas A&M are wealthy schools in their own right, so perhaps they cover the payoffs.

It's still a hit when you have to pay a fired coach $75 million to get out of town.

There was some press coverage about the Fisher firing, and they did make mention of the large payoff. But nothing came from sheltered A&M administrators or regents. It was perhaps athletics business as usual, if an expensive day at the office/stadium.

Fisher's replacement has yet to be named.

Texas A&M will get a Big Time head football coach and pay him better than most. It will see about winning and if the next guy can't get it done, then that guy will also be fired.

Seventy-million dollars is a lot of cash. We're pretty sure coach Jimbo Fisher is okay with being fired.

Texas taxpayers should not be...

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