Why stop at getting your name on a campus building or an endowed professorship if you're a big-bucks grad? It's way cooler to have the head football coach's job named for you and your wife.
Grab a deep breath and say Brady Hoke's new title: the J. Ira and Nicki Harris Family Head Football Coach.
That's what 75-year-old investment banker J. Ira Harris, UM Class of '59, does with his latest gift to the university -- where the football team's locker room, a Michigan Stadium suite and a sports journalism fellowship already are named for his family, Bill Shea reports at Crain's.
The University of Michigan's regents on Thursday approved a deal in which a $10-million endowment from an alumnus will include renaming the head football coach position as the J. Ira and Nicki Harris Family Head Football Coach. . . .
Earnings from the endowment will cover at least a portion of [Brady] Hoke's $300,000 base salary. . . .
"We likely will be doing this with other coaching positions," said UM Athletics Director David Brandon. "I anticipate you'll see more and more of this throughout college sports."
No one will hear Hoke's new mouthful of a title at field level or anywhere else, of course. It's "a formal name realistically expected to be used only in official university communications," Shea confirms.
-- Alan Stamm
