Here are some updated compensation figures for #Hokies assistant coaches, with a pandemic-related reduction for 2021. pic.twitter.com/b5qO7Jzv17— Andy Bitter (@AndyBitterVT) February 16, 2021
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A couple other points from Andy Bitter:
Did Fuente take a salary cut as well, or just his assistants?
Good question, and I had the same one - can't find anything about Fuente's comp changing.
Truly a sign of a great leader. Ask your team to take a pay cut without doing it yourself.
It isn't Fuente making the cuts. I don't know if the HC contract is the same in that he would be affected by the across the board cuts, but I would be shocked if he didn't substantially cut his own salary or put forth a good chunk toward his staff to help with the difference.
Why would it shock you if he didn't do it?
Let me rephrase it for clarification. If he isn't cutting a penny, whether required or by choice, I would be shocked he still has a staff.
I know he is not making the decisions, but why wasn't it published?
I remember an announcement from the Athletic Department saying everyone making over, I think, $150,000 had a 10% reduction.
https://vtnews.vt.edu/articles/2020/12/unirel_athletics-1203.html
Why wasn't it announced? Seems pretty tone deaf to me.
Whit openly mocks donors in press conferences about not donating enough money and then makes everyone but the head coach take a pay cut?
The information in that link is literally an announcement
What Jmecca is saying, though, is that Fuente's information isn't being announced. The absence of that information is the issue.
I think people are sort of unfairly piling on Jmecca here anyway. There's no harm in wondering why Fuente's salary info isn't even mentioned. Maybe a little premature to attack him for it but still fair to ask. And, personally, I agree that VT should have addressed that right off the bat. It is pretty stupid for VT to release that information for all the coaches except the one coach everyone is hyper obsessed about. At least acknowledge the absence of his information and give some sort of reason. But I'm also not surprised by the PR misstep. VTs football PR is straight up garbage and has been for some time.
It's possible that Whit wants to keep head coaching salaries higher across the board to attract better head coaches in the future. It's possible that Whit hasn't gotten to adjusting Fuente's salary yet. It's possible that Bitter just hasn't reported it yet.
It's premature to pin this on Fuente.
sure, it's premature to pin this on Fuente but the lack of any kind of acknowledgement of the conspicuous lack of his salary details is a big oversight by VT and it should be questioned. I don't think Jmecca's posts warrant the DVs she's catching. It's not offensive. It is a legitimate concern even if it's posed as a mild attack on CJF.
VT (or Fuente himself, for that matter), if they were smart, would have gotten out in front of this by at least sharing the information or sharing an explanation for the lack of the information. By completely ignoring it they're leaving the door open for fans to interpret it (likely incorrectly) however they want. And for a coach who has been oft maligned for various other things it would have been prudent to assume that not mentioning his salary in the context of most of his staff taking cuts would look bad. I think Jmecca is right that it is tone-deaf.
Eh, I don't know. I think the program is under intense scrutiny due to recent performance (which is fair to some degree). That said, I think this is an overreaction (just like the intership posting that followed Iezzi leaving) - There's a lot of concerns I have with the current program and it's trajectory, but this is not one of them.
None of the DVs were from me, but I do think the "Truly a sign of a great leader. Ask your team to take a pay cut without doing it yourself" comment was a bit inflammatory/noisy.
Even if it is a bad look, the messaging around this is not Fuente's fault
Agreed that it's not directly Fuente's fault. VT's messaging as a whole is poor. Fuente's also not doing anything to help himself. And frankly, VT isn't helping him out much either.
Lets be honest, if he announced that he had taken a 25% pay cut last year and this year to save Tech money there would still be fans that hated him. But some would love the incentive to go above and beyond.
Note, that was an example, I have no idea what if any cut he has agreed to.
Oh, absolutely! I know folks who hated him even when he won 10 games in year 1 (-4?). If he wins 10+ games in 2021 people will probably push this whole pay thing under the rug. But if 2021 goes the way 2020 did I wouldn't be shocked to see some fans bring this up, among many other gripes.
It may also be that assistants are on yearly contracts, so their new salaries need to be announced/reported, whereas Fuente's contract is established already, so there's not going to be announcement for his yearly salary.
Upvoting you. Not sure why the backlash to your comment.
Fuente's compensation was not disclosed in this announcement. If it were up to me he would get the biggest paycut of all for lack of results.
Whit screwed up with his press conference and calling out "small" donors". You didn't screw up with this comment, but you are clearly now facing the TKP "mob" (oh wait, thats what Whit called our online presence).
It should not be a downvotable offense to call out mistakes that Virginia Tech football keeps making. Whether thats the AD, Head Coach, the team's social media presence (which I don't follow, but seems to get a ton of complaints on this site), or otherwise. They are well compensated for their jobs, and they are simply not getting it done.
I don't think calling it out as a PR mistake is what is causing the downvotes, its more the following line:
That's an assumption to make and what seems to be an incorrect one since in the past it was stated that everyone was taking a 10% cut, my guess is that Fuente's wasn't released because his contract is public knowledge and you can deduce the new amount with the 10% cut while some of the assistants had their compensation changed outside of the 10% cut so they published all of their compensations.
I imagine that Fuente didn't ask his team to take paycuts; more likely whit told everyone they were getting pay cuts.
Everyone above 40k from the front office assistant to Fuente and Whit all took pay cuts and hourly employees had their hours cut. Open positions were left I filled and multiple employees throughout the athletic department were asked to retire or let go.
This... So much so. Even the video guys had to take pay cuts. It was across the board pay cuts for all.
There is no way he is that dumb is he? I am giving him the benefit of the doubt on that one.
I was shocked as well. It's not a good look IMO.
When the pandemic started, there were massive cuts across the board at my company. I opted to take a much larger cut so that my team with lower salaries wouldn't feel as much of a hit.
So let me get this straight, you're upset at Fuente because Andy Bitter tweeted a spreadsheet that he probably compiled himself with the assistant coaches pay reductions?
The Athletic Department made an announcement. They chose not to disclose any specific salaries but noted the policy decision to reduce pay and staff.
Seems to me you just want to hate on the football program.
There's a lot of guys on the staff other than just coaches. It's possible that they're all taking cuts so the guys making $30k don't have to take cuts.
Just b/c Fuente's cut hasn't been reported yet doesn't mean he hasn't taken one. Let's wait and see before we jump on him for being a poor leader. Some times news trickles out slow.
All salaried athletic department employees took 10% (or lower if salary too low)pay cuts because they operate on yearly letters. Long term contract people like head coaches took cuts but not yearly cuts like this.
Am I the only one who might have a totally different opinion of him if he decided to go by Tony Cornelsen instead?
Vance Vice does not make enough money.
Would love to see some of the Shibest money go to other coaches. Seems like it's the worst return on investment vs other coaches.
What does that fix though? If 25k makes them a better coach/try harder than we are doomed.
I haven't personally seen anything that warrants a raise to anyone on our coaching staff but I'm also just a fan that thinks we should win every game.
I tend to agree with this. I don't think an extra $25k makes a big difference to these guys. They want three things:
Obviously, different people care more about different things, but at a high level, this is what matters.
Yeah you can debate whether a great special teams coordinator and tight ends coach warranted a larger salary but the reality is you aren't going to shift a little money around to get better outcomes at this point.
I would rather performance based bonus for the position coaches. Your special teams rank outside of top 40, no bonus, top 40 to 20, small bonus, top 20-10 - medium bonus, top 10 larger... Etc. At this point there are metrics for every position.
I don't 'disagree' with the premise, but I'd be concerned with it in practice.
For example, let's say you have an offensive minded head coach who loves to play hurry up, therefore increasing the number of possesions per game for the other team, also increasing the amount of time on the field for your defense. The team maybe wins, but now at the end of the year your DC is bitter at because he feels like he would have a higher ranked defense if his unit wasnt on the field for 40+ mins each game, and thus would have a higher paycheck
Just imagine the outrage when Cornelson gets a bonus for the best offense we've had since 2010 after a 5-6 season.
I am generally in favor of incentives but they have to be structured carefully. Too much of a "good" thing can turn bad quick
Have to agree with Devonte and VPIHokieME - Anytime you incentivize employees with performance bonuses based on metrics, open the door for them to game system and/or unintentional limit their strategy/solutions to ones that will fit the performance bonus.
Incentives work great in theory, but not as cleanly in reality.
Goodhart's law is applicable here
TIL Goodhart's law. I like this one!
yeah, absolutely.
In this context it might be better to just have broader incentives. For instance, everyone gets a bonus if the team wins 10 games. Everyone gets a bonus if the team wins a conference championship. Everyone gets a bonus if the team wins a bowl game. That way the coaches on all sides are incentivized to work together to optimize their respective strategies for the team's greater good. No coach worth his salt is going to hang one unit for the sake of making the other unit look elite if it doesn't win them games. A good coach will evaluate strengths and weaknesses on either side and develop a strategy and game plans that take advantage of the strengths and mitigate the weaknesses in order to win ball games. And the overall objective is to win games anyway. Keep the incentives right in line with the overall objectives and you'll get everyone moving in the same direction.
You nailed it. In a team sport, the incentives need to be based on team production.
That may be how the contracts are structured. I seem to remember under Beamer Bud would get a bonus if the team won the Conference Championship, got to a certain bowl etc. I reference Bud because at some point under Beamer his contract was made public.