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By Jim Caltagirone
For the Mirror
An old saying in fundraising circles subscribes to the notion that institutions want a donor's money but not their two cents.
That sentiment is likely shared by athletic directors at universities from coast to coast, especially when it relates to unsolicited feedback on the performance of their head football coach.
Fundraising professionals for non-profits, charitable organizations and athletic programs foster a sense of shared commitment by describing prospective donors as stakeholders.
If the stakeholder label is truly legitimate, then by definition, alumni, boosters and donors should all be provided with a formal avenue to offer input on the performance review of a university's head football coach.
Of course, the assumption is that athletic directors of FBS programs actually conduct a university-sanctioned personnel review and not simply an annual assessment of program resources that the head coach deems lacking.
Instead of focusing on the insertion of incentive clauses in decade-long multi-million-dollar contracts, university officials and athletic directors should be crafting provisions that are activated when specific goals and objectives are not met.
During this past bowl season, an astute fan observed that one consequence of failed postseason expectations should be a reduction in the head coach's salary.
Bonuses and pay raises in this country have long been tied to employee production.
Granted, a head coach's annual review is ideally based on a multitude of factors, including academic performance, and every campaign is not going to yield a national championship.
But at some point, there has to be a realization that, for some coaches, the bar is set too high for them.
At least at the present stop on their coaching odyssey.
Texas A&M made a bold move this past November by buying out the contract of Jimbo Fisher at a cost of $75 million.
A statement released by the university included a quote from the athletic director noting that "a change in the leadership of the program was necessary in order for Aggie football to reach our full potential."
Even to a casual observer, that was a statement of the obvious.
In six seasons, Fisher's A&M teams were 45-25 overall and 27-21 in SEC play. The Aggies were 6-4 at the time of the firing. Another mark of underachievement was Fisher's 1-5 record against Alabama.
The hard lesson in the financial debacle at Texas A&M is one that many more universities are likely to experience over the coming years.
It involves fully guaranteed contracts for tens of millions of dollars, ridiculously large buyout clauses and contract lengths that are unreasonable in an era when the anticipation of sustained dominance is the stuff of fairy tales.
Unlikely as it is, the marketplace is the lone force that can institute a course correction.
The northbound direction of Major League Baseball player contracts over the last half century offers little hope that college coaching contracts will plateau.
College football fans continue to enable this pandemic of spiraling salaries by renewing season tickets and writing checks at historic rates.
Considering the loyal and passionate support for college football in this country, neither of those actions is likely to shift into reverse anytime soon.
And so it falls to university officials, who have been generally poor stewards to date, to ensure that multi-millionaire coaches achieve goals and objectives that adequately reflect the financial stake that has been invested in them.
With or without feedback from their donors.
Jim Caltagirone writes a monthly column for the Mirror.