U athletics: Maturi’s world
Posted on September 3rd, 2008 – 8:17 PMBy Roman Augustoviz
Now that Joel Maturi will be around a little longer — he just received a two-year extenstion through 2011-12, let’s probe his brain a little.
Some people who post comments were upset Tuesday when Pam Borton, the women’s basketball coach, received a six-year contract extension for $2.67 million. (She will earn more than Joel Maturi this year, next year, etc.)
Should rising coaching salaries concern U fans? “You know what, I think people understand the business of big-time college athletics and understand how this process works,” Maturi said. “Hopefully each of them are concerened about their own welfare and who they are and what they can and cannot accomplish and what we can do together to make this a better place.”
Go Gopher Nation.
Now that the work on an on-campus football stadium is so far along, what is your next big project? “If you are talking about facilities,” Maturi said. “It’s baseball. The next facilities’ project is a baseball deal. But we have several facilities issues we want to deal with, whether it would be the track, or whether it would be practice facilities for basketball, gymnastics, wrestling, whether it would be improvements of our soccer facility and soft facility, and things of this nature.
“Facilities never end, it is really an arms race, and there is always issues.”
Another major area Maturi works hard on is coaches and contracts. ”A big concern of mine is making sure we have the right people in the right places,” Maturi said. “And that has to do with contracts — getting the right people and support staff here and then paying them appropriately and hopefully keeping them here and helping them be successful.”
Maturi said the baseball stadium fund drive would start soon. Baseball coach John Anderson, the university’s development office, baseball boosters and a group of former players will lead it, Maturi said.
That’s a long overdue project for a program that seems to overachieve so often.
