Archive » Class project contributes to USA Today study of coaches’ compensation

Jessica Birthisel | April 2, 2010

Students worked on compiling information fort the database USA Today used in its report on coaches' compensation. The full story package was published Friday.

Two months after USA Today journalists visited the School of Journalism to train students in the J460 Sports Journalism Research class, the newspaper has published an article informed by the students’ work.

The article released Friday is a broad analysis of current coach compensation for the 65 teams who played in last year’s NCAA tournament. The story is on the home page of the USA Today Web site, and a link leads readers to the database.

In January, USA Today’s Steve Berkowitz and Jodi Upton visited the class to train students how to research and calculate total compensation levels of various men’s college basketball coaches for the purposes of creating a database. Publication is just in time for the Final Four portion of the 2010 NCAA tournament in Indianapolis.

“The USA Today story will be a conversation piece for sure,” said Tim Franklin, director of the National Sports Journalism Center director and Louis A. Weil Jr. Endowed Chair at the School of Journalism, who teaches the class. “If our project can in any way help start a national discourse on the topic of coaches’ compensation, then I think it will be a healthy benefit.”

The project started earlier in the semester when students filed more than 50 Freedom of Information (FOI) requests to higher education institutions for documents such as coach contracts and outside income reports. Out of those 50 requests, students received all but one back.

“If I had known when the semester began that we’d have that batting average, I would have taken it in a heartbeat,” joked Franklin, who said the exercise has taught students how to politely but firmly stay on a source when they need information for a story.

After the materials were collected, they needed to be analyzed, which Franklin said is no small task.

“Even I was surprised by the complexity of some of these coaches’ contracts,” said Franklin, adding that adjunct lecturer Robyn Schuster, who also has a law degree and practiced law, was brought in to help interpret some of the materials. “She was an enormous help.”

Berkowitz, USA Today’s sports projects editor, said in a phone interview that the IU students did a “really good job” with the data collection, especially given that most had a limited background in legal studies.

“Collectively, they showed a lot of perseverance and a lot of effort in trying really hard to do the best they could in interpreting and extracting the information that we needed,” said Berkowitz.

After the students boiled down the numbers to guaranteed income, non-guaranteed income, one-time payments and condition-based incentives, they entered the information into a database created by the School of Journalism information technology staff. From there, the numbers were converted to an Excel sheet and sent directly to USA Today, where reporters did another round of fact checking.

Berkowitz said he and his fellow journalists at the newspaper took that information and put some broader analysis around it for the larger article.

Franklin, who described the project as “a rare and unique window into the world of journalistic research and reporting,” gives credit to USA Today for having faith in the students’ ability to participate in the project. He praised Berkowitz and USA Today’s Jodi Upton, who also worked on the project.

Photo by Jessica Birthisel

USA Today’s Steve Berkowitz (center) and Jodi Upton (foreground) explained coaches’ contracts to students in J460 Sports Journalism Research in late January. The newspaper just published the report Friday and included access to the database the students helped compile.

“All along the way—they flew in and were on the phone at least two to three other times— have been terrific to work with,” said Franklin.

The process has been interesting, challenging and rewarding at times, but the project as a whole has taught the students valuable newsgathering skills, he said.

“One thing I think is important for students to learn is that as a reporter, you get a lot of complicated material thrown at you that you have to accurately analyze,” said Franklin. “For that reason, this has been an incredibly important exercise.”

Though the USA Today story publishes this week, students in the class are not done with their semester’s work. They will now enter the writing phase. Franklin expects all students to turn in a magazine-length piece on the topic by the end of the semester.

As the semester winds down, Franklin plans to bring in several veteran college coaches to talk about the compensation issue, starting next week with former University of Virginia head coach Dave Leitao. Franklin said Leitao will visit the class in order to create a “press conference-like experience” for the students, and will give a coach’s perspective on the issue of compensation.