Auburn releases contract details for basketball assistant coaches

The Auburn Tigers athletic department released the contract details for several assistant basketball coaches from last season on Tuesday. The university released all of the information in response to a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request.

According to AL.com’s Auburn beat reporter Tom Green, the program released its previously unannounced two-year deal with assistant Ira Bowman for $340K annually. Fellow assistant coach Wes Flanigan also has a two-year deal for $375K annually. Last but not least, Steven Pearl, son of Tigers head coach Bruce Pearl, agreed to a two-year deal worth $295K annually.

Pearl was a four-year letter-winner for his father, Bruce Pearl, at Tennessee, playing in 101 games from 2007to 2011. He helped Tennessee to back-to-back SEC East Championships in 2008 and 2009, with the ’08 team winning the league by two games over Kentucky and Mississippi State. He also appeared in the NCAA Tournament each year he was a part of the program with the Volunteers. They advanced to the Sweet 16 in 2007 and 2008 and the Elite Eight in 2010.

Tigers AD Allen Greene discusses how Auburn is addressing NIL concerns

It seems like you can’t talk about college sports without addressing the two biggest elephants in the room, NIL and the transfer portal. And on a recent episode of the Paul Finebaum Show, Auburn Tigers athletic director Allen Greene discussed how Auburn is addressing NIL concerns.

“Well, I think that’s part of the biggest challenges,” said Greene. “Different schools are interpreting things differently, as you mentioned. We’re working hard to be leaders in the industry and to support our student-athletes. I believe, like many of my peers have said, NIL in of itself is a really good thing, and we’re OK with that. I’m just bled into something that, quite frankly, we anticipated would happen with our guardrails. And so now, we’re in this world where we’ve heard the terms’ wild wild west’ and free agency, and we feel the same thing. That’s just part of where we are and just continue to try to work through and get some clarity and the best we can.

For those unfamiliar with NIL, it is short for name image and likeness and is the possibility of compensation paid to NCAA student-athletes to promote, partner, or represent brands using their own name, image and likeness. This change was brought along courtesy of the Supreme Court ruling in the NCAA v. Alston lawsuit. Thanks to this ruling, it has allowed athletes to profit from their brand and not just the schools.

There are some throughout the college sports landscape, like Alabama head coach Nick Saban, who believe that this will spell the downfall of college sports if left unchecked. And others, like former Tigers coach Gus Malzahn who are swimming with the new wave with or without rule changes.