Rumor down at the faculty club snookers table is that Duck athletic director Rob Mullens is entertaining an offer from high roller Gordon Gee, currently president at West Virginia University. It seems unlikely Mullens would seriously consider a step down like that, even if he is an alumnus. But maybe he can turn it into a retention offer?
Personally, I think it would make sense to write a new contract that gives Mullens some incentives for reducing the $4M or so in subsidies the Duck athletic department is taking from UO’s academic side.
The perverse incentives in Mullens’s current contract do almost exactly the opposite, as explained here: https://uomatters.com/2010/10/perverse-incentives-for-mullens.html
The contract is here, and Gottfredson’s firing gives Mullens an easy out on the salary he’d otherwise have to repay UO:
I think we should peg his retention offer generosity to that given to professors who have recently received outside offers.
OMG! WTF?! I have never seen such a thing. How can that be? Have you ever seen something like this? If the President is no longer the President, Mullens pays $0? That’s insane. Yep, one more time, we’re screwed. !@#$%^&*
Presumably Rob Mullens’s lawyer was worried that UO might hire a President, or get a Board of Trustees, who would start emphasizing academics over athletics, and he wanted to give his client an out.
Snowball’s chance in hell of either.