Report: Mel Tucker received full $100,000 bonus intended to be shared with coaches, support staff
Michigan State football coach Mel Tucker was the sole recipient of a $100,000 contract bonus that was “to be allocated between the Coach, the assistant football coaches, and the Program administrative staff, at the discretion of the Athletics Director with input from the Coach,” according to a report by USA Today’s Steve Berkowitz.
Via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to Michigan State University, USA Today turned up a June 14, 2022, “Additional Payments Form” that showed all $100,000 of an annual bonus was paid to Tucker. The university confirmed this was the $100,000 bonus designed to be spread among the nucleus of people running the football program.
Tucker signed a contract extension in November 2021 amid a sterling 11-2 second season; that extension locks Tucker in as the Michigan State head coach for 10 years while paying him $95 million fully guaranteed.
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The contract is also funded, at least in part, by private donations. To what extent isn’t entirely clear — and thus how much Michigan State is ultimately on the hook for isn’t known — but recently one of the donors, Mat Ishbia, revealed on HBO’s “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel” that he had contributed $14 million to the deal.
One of the provisions in the contract extension for Tucker created this $100,000 bonus.
Under Section F, “Performance Incentive Bonuses,” subsection four spells out the bonus in whole:
“The University shall pay a yearly bonus of $100,000 to the Program, to be allocated between the Coach, the assistant football coaches, and the Program administrative staff, at the discretion of the Athletics Director with input from the Coach. The University shall [sic] such a bonus no later than June 30th following the end of each football season, provided, however, that the University shall not be obligate to pay such bonus to the Program if the Coach had a provided notice of termination to the University” pursuant to the contract.
It’s comfortably within the scope of the contract for all that money to go to Tucker — it was allocated, just wholly to the head coach and not others, per the reporting from USA Today.
The State News, Michigan State’s student newspaper, reported in February that several assistants on staff got pay bumps, but only two assistants — offensive coordinator Jay Johnson and defensive coordinator Scottie Hazelton — are making more than $1 million annually.