The Unnecessarily Long Contract Extension.

Signed a "12" Year Deal.

We’ll take a little break from the Masters here.  Tiger getting ready to tee off, scoring not near what it was yesterday in the first two hours so far today.  And, keep an eye on Sandy Lyle…but, what I want to talk about is the twelve-year deal that Butler gave their basketball coach Brad Stevens.  The trend seems to be moving toward these long contracts, and yet they strike me as bad business in most cases, and also quite pointless.  Twelve years seems like too long to commit to most anything, especially a basketball coach.  I hope Stevens does want to stay at Butler.  I hope he’s there forever, I just don’t see the point in doing a 12-year deal.

You can make the argument that for a school like Butler it’s their best option.  They probably want to lock Stevens into a deal at a somewhat reasonable price, and giving him job security for the next decade is a good way to offer something a higher profile school won’t offer.  That makes sense to a certain extent.  The only problem is, Stevens is either genuine, or he’s not.  If he actually wants to stay at Butler forever, then he doesn’t need a 12-year deal.  If he wants to leave, he’ll leave.  You can give him 20 years, if he wants to split to coach Indiana in five years, he’s going to split.  So essentially, Butler has just given Stevens a safety net, or a bargaining chip.  Maybe the small school doesn’t have any other choice.

So much can happen in 12 years, though.  There’s a reasonable chance that Butler won’t want Stevens to still be the head man after all this time.  Does the name Charlie Weis ring a bell?  One season of Charlie and it was back on the gravy train for Notre Dame.  Lock him up for 10 years!  This is going to last forever!  Until it doesn’t, and you’re paying him a buyout in the hard to swallow eight figure range.  Could Notre Dame afford it?  Sure, but they got so panicked that Charlie would leave them for the glitz and glamor of Buffalo or something that they threw 10 years at him.  Only problem was, he turned out to be a not so great coach.  Lesson learned?  Probably not.

I guess I just believe if you have a good relationship with a coach than you have a good relationship, you don’t need to pad it with ridiculous deals.  And, what are the chances Stevens fulfills this deal as it is outlined right now?  Do we honestly think he either won’t leave Butler, or sometime in the next 12 years look to renegotiate this thing?  I suppose if he goes Eddie Jordan, mails it in, then he’ll be happy to collect on his 12 years, but I don’t think that’s happening.  He’ll be gone, they’ll rip up the deal, something will happen, and this contract just becomes an attention getting headline.