MORGANTOWN, W. Va. — According to contracts released by West Virginia on Tuesday, the only pay cuts WVU men’s basketball assistants Larry Harrison, Ron Everhart and Erik Martin will acquire this season are the mandated 5% cuts announced by athletic director Shane Lyons back in May.
All three assistants signed new deals at the end of June, as their contracts expired on June 30.
Other than the mandated pay cut, the only change was in the length of the extensions.
All three assistants signed one-year extensions good for the 2020-21 season. Their previous contracts were a two-year term.
The contracts were released through a Freedom of Information Act request.
The changes were expected. During a Zoom conference in May, Lyons said he expected most contracts that were set to expire would be extended on a one-year basis, due to the unknown financial situations surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I can share that, when it comes to the coaches who are up for contracts, I don’t think we’re in a position to do any type of multi-year contracts as we go through this not knowing what the future will look like,” Lyons said.
As for the pay cuts, Lyons also announced that beginning July 1, any WVU athletic department employee earning more than $100,000 would take a 5% cut in the school’s effort to save $3 million in payroll during the coronavirus pandemic. Lyons, as well as football coach Neal Brown, men’s basketball head coach Bob Huggins and baseball coach Randy Mazey agreed to 10% cuts in salary.
All three men’s basketball assistants earned more than $200,000 last season.
Martin will earn $201,571 this season, while Everhart will earn $247,000 and Harrison is set to make $302,357 — all three are 5% less than the terms of their 2019-20 deals.
Their incentive packages remained the same, with a national championship being worth equal to two month’s salary for each coach and a Big 12 tournament championship being worth equal to one month’s salary.
As in their previous contracts, no incentives will be paid if the men’s team does not earn at least a 930 in its Academic Progress Rate (APR) score.
The Mountaineers earned a 995 this year, the highest score among Big 12 men’s basketball teams.
Harrison and Martin will be entering their 14th season at WVU, while Everhart will be in his ninth season at the school.
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