Brown’s New Salary is Texas Huge

Amid pay freezes for many employees and proposed tuition increases, the University of Texas on Wednesday made Mack Brown by far the highest-paid coach in college football history.

Beginning next season, Brown will be paid at least $5.1 million a year under a contract revision approved by the UT System Board of Regents. He’ll become the first college football coach to reach the $5 million threshold, zooming past Southern California’s Pete Carroll, whose $4.4 million in total compensation for USC’s 2007-08 fiscal year topped USA TODAY’s 2009 survey of football coaches’ pay.

Brown, 128-26 with one national title at Texas, is making $3 million this season under a 10-year contract signed in September 2007. He will be due a one-time payment of $2 million for continuing his employment until Jan. 15. He also has earned $250,000 in bonuses this season and will earn $450,000 more if Texas wins the Bowl Championship Series title Jan. 7.

The revision makes the $2 million payment annual for the remainder of his deal, which will continue to include a $100,000 annual salary increase, incentives and other perks.

Brown is paid from athletic department revenue. The department receives no government or institutional support and has transferred more than $6.6 million to the university since the 2005-06 fiscal year. Texas is among 25 of 120 major-college programs that made more on athletics than they spent in 2007-08, the most recent year covered in USA TODAY and NCAA studies; it spent $111 million and had a $9.2 million surplus.

Last February, high-ranking UT system officials and the 15 campus presidents agreed to a pay freeze for 2009-10. In June, the Austin campus froze salaries of most non-faculty personnel. And last week, an Austin campus committee recommended a tuition increase of 3.95% for both the 2010-11 and 2011-12 school years.