Before we get started here, ask yourself a few general questions, and then we’ll get to a specific one. The first is: How do you determine what to believe in? Fiction or fact? Rumor or reality? These days, you have to wonder, truth being obscured as it is by a whole lot of … what’s the word, bullspit? Close enough.
The latter question is: Was Utah smart to extend on Thursday the contract of athletic director Mark Harlan clear out until 2028, jacking his annual salary over that span to more than $1 million, not to mention hefty bonuses that most rank-and-file folks would be more than happy to receive as a stand-alone yearly salary?
Indeed, some people might be upset that public universities involved in college sports, under any circumstances, shell out that kind of cash for an AD. Football coaches already make millions, far more than any other state employee. Now, athletic directors, some of them, do, too.
Harlan does. More on that later.
Back to what obscures: When Harlan arrived at Utah and then started in on his reign at the head of Ute sports five years ago out of South Florida, I heard from some corners nasty talk about the man. He was angry. He was unreasonable. He was self-interested. He was ambitious. He wouldn’t remain at Utah because he had his eyes on bigger prizes at bigger places elsewhere. He essentially was Beelzebub’s cousin.
But every time I talked with the purported Evil One, he seemed rational, reasonable, capable, like an administrator who not only understood the way college athletics work, both the positive and the negative, he actually had U. sports’ best interests, not just his own, at heart.
Well. Utah president Taylor Randall must have had the same impression because, as mentioned, he extended Harlan’s contract, making it richer, making it harder for his guy to pack up and leave. What makes that extension so significant at this particular time is the fact that Utah is on the precipice of important decisions that will affect its place in college sports for seasons to come, decisions such as how to navigate the NIL era and of which conference to be a part, decisions that will boost it on its onward path toward competitive success and solid footing financially.
Randall put it like this: “Mark is one of the top athletic directors in the country. He is the right person at the right time to continue leading our athletics programs as we navigate the changing landscape of college athletics.”
That proper navigation centers on two things: winning and money.
That last one is a big deal, especially with some other P5 programs, such as current Pac-12-mate Washington State, scrambling to find stability.
Stability often comes via the first one, and the Utes under Harlan are having and enjoying exactly that. Utah teams won seven conference championships over the 2022-23 year, five in the Pac-12, including the biggest trophy of all — a football title and a trip to the Rose Bowl. It was the second straight football championship and Rose Bowl appearance for the Utes.
If you put any stock in the sometimes-political reception of awards, Harlan was named by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics as the athletic director of the year in 2023. So, there’s that.
Harlan recently told me how proud he is of what Utah teams and athletes are doing, crediting everyone from coaches like Kyle Whittingham to the janitors who polish facility floors at night.
“It starts with being around great coaches, amazing professionals who have recruited amazing talent in many of our sports, not just the high-profile ones,” he said. Harlan also praised the athletes themselves, as well as the long list of people who help them reach peak performance, from nutritionists to physicians to psychologists to data analysts.
Moreover, Harlan said that once a few teams started in on winning championships, others began raising their expectations, leading to a healthy environment that elevated competition from respective fields and diamonds and courts and gyms to outfits within the Utah department, one team wanting to emulate another. Men’s basketball is a group that’s lagged behind.
“It’s contagious,” Harlan said. “Everybody wants a piece of it.”
Everybody also benefits from tidy financials.
In the 2021-22 fiscal year, the most recent with numbers available, Utah sports generated $115.7 million, record revenue for the school, measured against $111.8 million in expenses, leaving Utah with a surplus of more than $3.8 million. In addition, Ute sports gained nearly $30 million in donations.
The U. also likes to boast about its 93 percent score in the NCAA Graduation Success Rate among athletes.
Decide for yourselves, then, whether a million bucks is the appropriate amount to pay an AD every year (some make well in excess of that) at a public university, and whether bonuses of up to $350,000 make sense.
But even if someone doesn’t like Harlan or wants to pass along rumors about him, his personal manner, his way of doing business, his ambitions, or something unsubstantiated happening under his wing, I’ll take the facts, the reality of what’s happening with Utah sports.
“I look forward to [Utah’s] continued success,” he said.
Mark Harlan’s doing a helluva good job or a heavenly one, take your pick.
I’ll take the latter.
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