The Purdue Board of Trustees was busy this week, approving multiple proposals for the Purdue budget, changes and new construction at the brand new Purdue-Indianapolis campus, and contract extensions and raises for both men’s basketball head coach Matt Painter and women’s basketball head coach Katie Geards.
We originally saw these reported by Dave Bangert on Twitter, who does an excellent job reporting on all things Purdue, Lafayette, and West Lafayette. If you’re interested in the region, I’d highly recommend it and point out that he has a substack with even more material.
While the tweet just mentions that Gearlds earned a pay increase, additional investigation reveals that Gearlds also received an extension. The two-year extension extends her contract until the 2028-2029 season. This is the old Morgan Burke approach to head coaching contracts, which presumably applies elsewhere as well. You should always have a four-year contract so that you can tell recruits that you will be there for the entire four years. Throughout his time at Purdue, Burke emphasized this to both his football and basketball coaches.
Purdue trustees extend contract for men's basketball coach Matt Painter through 2029, with base salary for 2024-25 of $4.85M, with performance-based incentives of $1.2M.
Trustees say the contract puts Painter in top 4 in expanded Big Ten. More later at https://t.co/5PiEXnTx2z pic.twitter.com/5DAj0TQWgY
— Dave Bangert (@davebangert) June 7, 2024
Purdue trustees also bump pay for women's basketball coach Katie Gearlds for 2024-25 season from $550K to $700K.
AD Mike Bobinski calls it a vote of confidence in Gearlds and where the program is heading. pic.twitter.com/n5m5wqMQCn
— Dave Bangert (@davebangert) June 7, 2024
Both coaches are currently set till 2028-2029. Matt Painter’s deal places him in the conference’s top four, which makes perfect sense given that he recently won back-to-back Big Ten Conference championships and appeared in the National Championship game. I believe he’s one of the best four coaches in the Big Ten. Gearlds, which made the NCAA Tournament two seasons ago, struggled for the majority of this season. They lost one of the team’s key players throughout the summer and will have a whole new starting lineup come opening day next year.
It will take a long time to restore the women’s team back to where we all want them to be, but I believe Gearlds can do it if everyone is patient with her.
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