Tag Archives: Mark Helfrich

Has ex-Duck Mark Helfrich finally found gainful employment?

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We can only hope so. Under the porky contract that AD Rob Mullens negotiated, and Chuck Lillis and the UO Board of Trustees Executive Committee approved in Feb 2015, UO is still on the hook for $10M or so in salary payments to Helfrich, even though Mullens fired him last winter.

Helfrich is supposed to make reasonable efforts to find new employment, the earnings from which would offset what UO is paying him. So a new job is a net negative for him – he’s gotta work, but it adds nothing to his millions in take home. And Lillis thinks *faculty* deadwood are the problem?

Of course, if UO was willing to threaten cutting his payments if he couldn’t demonstrate some job search efforts, that would change his incentives a little. And today the Oregonian’s Andrew Greif reports that Helfrich may have found temporary work this fall, for Fox Sports.

AD Mullens buys out Duck basketball coach Don Altman for 12 Gottfredsons

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11/29/2016 update: The RG’s Ryan Thornburn has the shocking details here.

Or at least I think it was the basketball coach – he’s about to drop out of the rankings too. But maybe his buyout is next year.

Meanwhile, Mullens, Altman, Helfrich and the other well-paid Athletic Department employees haven’t been giving much to the University’s Charitable Fund Drive for state and community charities:

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11/28/2016 update: Matt Helfrich wins excellent $9.4M buyout with lousy 34-44 Civil War loss

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Duck football player under investigation for alleged assaults of female student

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8/26/2016 update: Coach Helfrich has now declared the player guilty, and in doing so has committed a flagrant violation of Klinger’s interpretation of the accused’s FERPA rights. The Salem Statesman Journal reports:

“[The student-athlete] has been suspended indefinitely for a violation of University and Department of Athletics codes of conduct,” Oregon coach Mark Helfrich said in a released statement. “At the conclusion of the University process, his status as a student-athlete will be evaluated further.”

Oh, right, the athletic department makes their players sign a FERPA release. How could I forget Dana Altman and Craig Pintens not telling me that? How could Tobin Klinger? Video here:

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Why did Mark Helfrich keep this quiet until after the Emerald reporters broke the story?

And guilty of what? The Duck’s team rules include things like a requirement you call Professional Development Coordinator Tom Hart on his *personal* cell-phone if you’ve had contact with the cops:

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And stay away from Egyptian motorcycle gangs and the Russian prostitutes they own.

8/26/2016: The Daily Emerald has the scoop here, from Tran Nguyen, Ryan Kostecka and Cooper Green. The RG and Oregonian reports do a nice job citing them. UO strategic communicator Tobin Klinger has his traditional response:

UO spokesman Tobin Klinger declined to provide details, citing the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. Representatives of the UO Athletic Department could not immediately be reached.

I’m no law professor, but here’s what the lawyers at the US Department of Education who supposedly enforce FERPA have to say about Klinger’s FERPA claim:

“Law enforcement unit records” (i.e., records created by the law enforcement unit, created for a law enforcement purpose, and maintained by the law enforcement unit) are not “education records” subject to the privacy protections of FERPA. As such, the law enforcement unit may refuse to provide an eligible student with an opportunity to inspect and review law enforcement unit records, and it may disclose law enforcement unit records to third parties without the eligible student’s prior written consent. However, education records, or personally identifiable information from education records, which the school shares with the law enforcement unit do not lose their protected status as education records because they are shared with the law enforcement unit.

Win over Cal costs UO $50K for Helfrich bonus + administrator junkets

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11/7/2015: 

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Apparently this win means the Ducks are going to some bowl game, and Helfrich gets a $50K bonus for that. Then we have to pay for all the admins and their families to go along for the junket. Here’s Tim Gleason, then Journalism Dean, now Faculty Athletics Representative, at the 2013 Fiesta Bowl student recruiting event:

VP  for Enrollment Roger Thompson videotapes one or two humiliating events like this at every bowl game, so that the administrators can show the IRS there was a business purpose for their family’s holiday junket:

4/12/2015: Coach Helfrich’s raise totals more than all 1500 UO staff combined

UO has about 1500 staff workers, making an average wage of about $35,000 a year. Their SEIU local 503 is currently bargaining with OUS for a new contract. The OUS offer is an 0.5% COLA, or $175 each per year.

Meanwhile, the UO administration just found the money to give football coach Mark Helfrich a slightly larger raise:

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Here’s the message from the SEIU local:

Higher Ed Management Proposals Not Unified Across State, Return to the “Big Three,” Attack Health Care, Steps, and More Continue reading →

Helfrich & Mullens give Lillis expensive lesson on regression to the mean

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10/10/2015: Apparently unaware of a basic statistical principle, Chuck Lillis and the BOT gave Mark Helfrich and AD Ron Mullens fat new contracts in February, just after the #2 BCS outcome.

It will now cost about $15M to buy out Helfrich, although there’s a 50% discount if he doesn’t win at least six games in each of 2 consecutive seasons:

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Which explains why UO paid EWU and GSU $1.5M to come to campus and lose this year. Even with those two body-bag games, six wins is looking iffy for Helfrich,  Presumably a buy-out will be too embarrassing for the BOT and Mullens, so instead they’ll give him more money, to hire some smart assistant coaches.

Expect Mullens to pay for the Ducks to go to some easy low-ranked bowl game if needed to get Helfrich to six. And expect Helfrich to bring some risky recruits to campus next year – although hopefully not as risky as Dana Altman’s.

9/22/2015: Helfrich picked perfect time to hit up UO Trustees for fat contract renewal

Cousins Jim and John are the football experts, not me. But the betting markets now give Helfrich’s Ducks a 1% probability of winning the BCS championship, without the unpaid labor of Marcus Mariota:

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That’s less than the probability that Donald Trump will be the next POTUS:

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In February the UO Board of Trustees gave big raises to Duck AD Rob Mullens and football coach Mark Helfrich, after a second place finish in last year’s championship. Board Secretary Angela Wilhelms kept the purpose of the meeting secret until the last minute, and even left the contracts off the docket of meeting materials. The board approved them with no discussion after then Interim President Scott Coltrane enthusiastically endorsed the raises:

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The contracts were made public later, and along with many perks and bonuses the Trustees basically doubled Helfrich’s base salary, which had been a mere $1.8M:

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Oregon holds out on multi-year scholarships for players

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From the Chronicle, 4/19/2013:

Nearly two-thirds of the 56 most powerful Division I public universities now offer multiyear awards, according to a Chronicle review of public records. Yet few of those institutions do so for more than a handful of athletes. 

Among the holdouts are some of the wealthiest programs, including the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Oregon, and Texas A&M. At the University of Arizona, Georgia Tech, and the University of Louisville, this year’s NCAA men’s basketball champions, you can count the multiyear beneficiaries on one hand. 

Officials from some of those colleges say their hesitation is not about the money—they just oppose making long-term promises to prospects who may not hold up their end of the bargain. 

“Who gets a four-year, $120K deal guaranteed at age 17?” Christine A. Plonsky, women’s athletic director at the University of Texas, wrote in an e-mail to The Chronicle. “The last thing young people need right now is more entitlement.”

Speaking of entitlement, AD Rob Mullens and most of the UO coaches have multi-year contracts that require UO to pay their salaries even if they are fired. And of course we know what Frohnmayer/Grier gave Bellotti, who is also getting more than $500K a year from PERS, as a result of some very unusual accounting tricks.

Wisconsin wasn’t afraid to give me a 4 year guarantee. Of course that was just for graduate school, not something that would bring in millions for the coaches and the athletic director. And I wasn’t a naive 17 year old prohibited from hiring an agent to look after my interests. Nice scam these guys have got going.