In-house sports camps could mean more cash for coaches

A sweet deal for Michigan coaches might get a little sweeter in the next two or three years.

The athletic department wants to consolidate all the coaches' individual sports camps and bring them "in-house," said Senior Associate Athletic Director Peg Bradley-Doppes. In addition to thickening coaches' wallets, the new system would provide the athletic department with better oversight.

"We really are out of the loop," Bradley-Doppes said.

Currently, the sweaty hordes of teenagers that descend upon Ann Arbor attend camps run only by the Michigan coach for that particular sport. For example, high school baseball players come to the Geoff Zahn Michigan Baseball Camp, not the Michigan
ADRIANA YUGOVICH/Daily
Camper Ryan Shead, 14, watches a game during the Michigan basketball camp last Thursday. The athletic department plans to eventually consolidate the summer camps. > Baseball Camp.

When current head wrestling coach Dale Bahr takes his new job in the athletic department following the 1998-99 season, high schoolers might not notice a difference. But the coaches and the athletic department definitely will.

Bahr has run a successful camp for over 20 years, Bradley-Doppes said, which makes him "a perfect fit."

Not that there's anything wrong with the camps as they are.

Coaches now run their camps as independent corporations - albeit ones run from their offices in Weidenbach Hall - and once all expenses (including their employees' salaries and the fees to use the University's athletic facilities) are paid, they get to pocket the rest.

But Bradley-Doppes said bringing the programs in house will not only make the single, unified program "one of the best sports camp programs in the country," but it will make life a lot easier for the coaches. As the programs stand now, coaches form their own corporations to run their camps.

But if coaches can be freed of organizing camps, the logic goes, they will be free to get back to coaching - what they do best, along with, of course, recruiting.

The purpose of the sports camps, Bradley-Doppes said, is to show off Michigan's facilities, attracting potential athletes to the school. The camps are a better recruiting tool for some sports than for others. Football coach Lloyd Carr recently inked a letter from Brighton's David Pearson, a recent participant in his football camp. Field hockey coach Marcia Pankratz said her camp is more about promoting the sport than about recruiting.

But there's an added bonus, too. Now, the coaches run their camps as a corporation, paying assistants and counselors and renting out facilities from the athletic department. Under the new system, money would still flow to the coaches and their assistants.

"It's not a revenue producing venture," Bradley-Doppes said. "Who wins in this are the assistant coaches. It's a wonderful way to add to assistant coaches'" compensation.

"Our entire motivation (for bringing the camps in-house) is to pool our resources," Bradley-Doppes said.

07-06-98