Jeff Long Goes for Green

We wrote a story earlier this fall, with the help of our fine friends at ArkansasSports360.com, about the outside income and incentive money earned by University of Arkansas coaches.

The issue had barely hit newsstands when someone asked why we didn’t include athletic director Jeff Long’s incentive package. The answer was simple: we didn’t know athletic directors earned incentive money.

Frankly, we’re still not sure it’s a prevalent practice. What we have learned, though, is Long can double his $450,000 annual salary via incentives.

Granted, Razorback teams would have to produce multiple conference and/or national championships in any given year for Long to double his pay, but he can hit six figures in incentives pretty easily.

To earn an extra $112,500, for example, Long needs just three of the following seven things to happen:

• All teams avoid Academic Progress Rate scholarship penalties for the academic year.
• Student-athletes’ NCAA graduation rate equals or exceeds that of the UA’s general student population; and/or at least 50 percent of the student-athletes achieve a cumulative grade-point average of 3.0 or higher in an academic year.
• Long maintains good citizenship.
• The football team participates in a bowl game.
• The men’s and/or women’s basketball team participates in the NCAA Tournament.
• Any other team participates in NCAA postseason play.
• The athletic department maintains an annual budget.

If four or more of the above happen, Long’s bonus jumps to $150,000. And that doesn’t even take into account other perks he enjoys, like two “dealer-loaned vehicles” and multiple country club memberships.

Upon further review, however, there was one overwhelming thought that left us scratching our heads: good citizenship? Really?