Iowa State To Pay Kevin Dresser $2.25M Over 7 Years

Iowa State To Pay Kevin Dresser $2.25M Over 7 Years

Kevin Dresser has agreed to a seven-year deal worth $2.25 million to become head coach at Iowa State University.

Feb 21, 2017 by Wrestling Nomad
Iowa State To Pay Kevin Dresser $2.25M Over 7 Years
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Now that he is coming back home to Iowa, Kevin Dresser is getting a serious raise. Iowa State athletic director Jamie Pollard negotiated a long-term deal to bring the four-time Atlantic Coast Conference Coach of the Year to Ames. According to a press release from the Cyclones...

Pollard and Dresser agreed to a seven-year deal worth a total of $2.25 million in guaranteed salary plus incentives. His base salary for next year is $300,000.
Dresser's base salary for the 2017-18 season will double what he earned during 2015-16, a year in which he won the first team trophy in the history of Virginia Tech's wrestling program by placing fourth at the NCAA championships.

The agreement was formally announced by the university on Monday. It is an encouraging sign for Division I wrestling that a coach without an NCAA title can receive a multi-million dollar contract and one of the highest base salaries of any coach in the country.

Dresser's payday is similar in scale to one that a coach of a mid-major basketball program would receive. In turn, this should help lift the salaries of coaches at other wrestling programs on the rise that are hoping to match the type of growth Dresser was able to cultivate in Blacksburg, VA. The fact that Dresser was able to secure a deal like this without a national championship could become a bargaining point for coaches moving forward.

Along with the news that Dresser will be taking over the Cyclones, Virginia Tech athletic director Whit Babcock announced Hokies assistant Tony Robie will serve as VT's interim head coach for the remainder of the season. Robie has previous head coaching experience at Binghamton University and was an assistant at Michigan, another Power 5 conference school. It is unclear who the school will choose to succeed Dresser, but there is a strong chance Robie's 12th season in Blacksburg could be spent as the head coach.


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