NYT-1201: STATE OF THE ART A Thermostat That's Clever, Not ...

the team did not win a game until the final day o
f the season. The next morning, the coach, Norries
Wilson, was fired. He finished with a record of 1
7-43 in six seasons.
For decades, the football team has been at best a
punch line and at worst an object of scorn. Last w
eek, the Columbia Spectator, the campus newspaper,
ran a column questioning whether the team should
exist at all, painting the program as antithetical
to the university’s academic values.
Jim Pagels, one of the newspaper’s sports editors,
said the views did not represent the majority of
the student body, but that the football team in hi
s view was indeed marginalized. “There is not a re
al resentment or a call to disband the football te
am,” he said. “But I think in general there is wid
espread apathy and indifference.”
Taken together, these factors might at first glanc
e afford Murphy’s search a measure of quaintness.
Yet, there are indications that the vacant job — t
hough lacking in outward glamour — might be an une
xpectedly enviable one.
The average salary for the head coaches of Columbi
a’s 14 men’s teams last year was $93,984, accordin
g to a report from the United States Department of
Education. The same report showed the university
had spent $2,670,238 — far less than Meyer’s new a
nnual salary — to cover the combined expenses of t
he entire football program.
The football coach, however, is compensated at a l
evel comparable to senior administration officials
and top faculty members, according to people fami
liar with the program, and his base salary is actu
ally closer to $250,000. Other benefits can includ
e an apartment in Manhattan and assistance in enro
lling a coach’s children in the competitive, unive
rsity-run elementary school on the Upper West Side.