Show me the money

Thank you for your in-depth coverage of the hiring of Ron Gould as UC Davis’ new football coach. From your reporting, it looks like this was a great hire. Coach Gould sounds like the perfect fit for UCD.

In these challenging budget times, and in light of the recent elimination of four intercollegiate athletic teams and an ICA budget that I understand is operating in the red, I am interested in knowing how much money UCD is committing to this new era of football and where this money is coming from. One of your articles stated that coach Gould will be receiving a base salary of $235,000 and that further salary information was available upon request.

I read somewhere else that additional salary incentives were built into his contract for the academic and on-field accomplishments of the team. I’d be interested in knowing these details. I also wonder how much was committed to the program for the hiring of coach Gould’s staff. And to put this all into proper perspective and context as a California taxpayer, former UCD student, 29-year staff employee of UCD and 33-year member of the Davis community, I’m interested in knowing how much more this will be costing UCD than if coach Biggs and his staff had been staying on the UCD payroll.

I recall that the UCD administration has stated on numerous recent occasions that they are fully committed to full transparency in such matters, so I would expect The Enterprise can obtain this information without too much difficulty.

I would encourage The Enterprise to continue their informative and thorough reporting on the new coach Gould era and the UCD football program by seeking this information from the UCD administration and reporting it to the community.

Clyde W. Froehlich
Davis