Air Force, Calhoun agree on new 5-year deal
Football coach signed through 2012, gets $560,000 in '08
Air Force football coach Troy Calhoun’s new contract is official.
The five-year deal runs through the 2012 season and includes a base salary that will start at $560,000 this year and increase by 5 percent each year.
The actual value of the contract, including benefits, is just less than $646,000.
And less than what athletic director Hans Mueh offered Calhoun.
According to Mueh, when he and Calhoun negotiated the deal, Calhoun first sought to improve the contracts of his assistants. His civilian assistants received average salary increases of 11.4 percent, according to Air Force sports information director Troy Garnhart. Raises for assistant head coach Brian Knorr and running backs coach Jemal Singleton, who are government contractors, are in the works.
After taking care of the assistants, Mueh said he offered Calhoun a base salary that Calhoun turned down because it was “too much.” Mueh would not reveal his original offer.
They quickly settled on the amount in the contract, which is $35,000 more than what Calhoun would have made this year had he not renewed his original contract.
Calhoun was approached by six college teams with coaching vacancies, Mueh said, including Southern Methodist. SMU eventually hired Hawaii’s June Jones and gave him a contract worth slightly less than $2 million per year.
“Being a part of the Air Force Academy, there’s something a little more moving, something a little bit stronger than purely dollars,” Calhoun said.
Calhoun has nine incentive clauses in his contract that will pay him a percentage of his annual payment — some of which have been increased from his first deal — including winning or retaining the Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy (5 percent, up from 3), winning the Mountain West Conference (7.5 percent, up from 5) and finishing in the top 25 (5 percent, up from 3).
Calhoun’s deal is a “rolling” contract, meaning an additional year will be added at the end of each year so Calhoun always will have five years on his deal. It also includes a buyout clause that calls for Calhoun to pay 30 percent of remaining payments if he takes another job.
According to Garnhart, the academy also agreed to pay Calhoun an annuity for longevity similar to what ex-coach Fisher DeBerry had in his contract. It will be added later.
