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Brownell Earned His Pay This Year, and Due a Raise

Via Sawchik

Clemson athletic director Terry Don Phillips said Tuesday he will meet with Brownell soon to discuss end-of-season items including compensation.

Brownell made $900,000 in the first year of a five-year contract Clemson after previously coaching at Wright State.

"We need to be fair to him with regard to how we handle contractual issues," Phillips said. "We’ll look and see where we are and make sure we are being fair to him and his staff."

Brownell is among the lowest paid men’s basketball coaches in the ACC. And unlike Clemson football coach Dabo Swinney, Brownell’s contract contains no automatic escalators for base compensation.

According to Forbes, Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski is the league’s highest-paid coach, earning $2.2 million per year with incentives that have pushed his compensation to $4 million in past seasons. North Carolina’s Roy Williams is second in the ACC, earning $2 million.

In his final season at Clemson last year, Oliver Purnell earned $1.3 million, roughly the conference average in compensation for a men’s basketball coach. Purnell departed Clemson last season for a $2 million contract at DePaul.

Phillips said he has not been contacted by another program with interest in Brownell. Brownell has won at least 20 games in six straight seasons.

"We are very pleased with Brad," Phillips said. "He has shown he is a great coach … and a great fit for Clemson."

We're all for giving him a raise, he earned his paycheck. I'd be hard pressed to name another coach on campus besides Penley I have confidence in. I know some will want to lock him up forever but we don't need to run into a Paul Hewitt situation if we don't know how well he can recruit just yet. A raise to the median of ACC coaches seems fair to me, but I'd stack some incentives on top of that for NCAA Tournament appearances and conference titles so he could make far more.

I think I could get behind any deal in the $1.2-1.4M range, and give his assistants better deals.