A report compiled by the University Commission on Women that states UH male coaches are paid more than female coaches doesn’t tell the whole story, UH Athletics officials said.
"Salaries of coaches are similar to the salaries of faculty, they are market driven," Richard Scamell, NCAA faculty athletics representative for UH, said.
According to the commission’s report, "Coaches’ salaries for the women’s teams are approximately half of the salaries of male coaches."
However, determining coaches’ salaries not only depends on their expertise and number of years coaching, but also the revenue their respective sports bring in, Scamell said in a report he compiled in response to the commission’s report.
"Every Division I-A program in the country with a football and men’s basketball program has a disparity with respect to coaches’ salaries," Scamell said. "It should be noted that this disparity is for the most part associated with the difference between revenue and non-revenue sports."
Football and men’s basketball are the sports that bring revenue to the University, Scamell told The Daily Cougar. .
The report completed by the University Commission on Women did not note that revenue versus non-revenue in sports factors into a coach’s salary.
"I have no idea where their information came from," UH Athletics Director Dave Maggard said. "It was certainly not what was reported from the NCAA, the committee that worked intensely on Scamell’s report."
Beverly McPhail, director of the Women’s Resource Center and author of the report, confirms the numbers in the report are factual.
"We used data mostly produced by (the Athletics) Department," McPhail said. "Also, I had the associate director of Athletics at the time, Diane Hall, read over that section of the report and she did not find any factual errors."
Scamell also said the facts in the report were not a problem, but at times they made the situation look worse than it was.
"The Women’s Sports Foundation uses a proportionality gap to evaluate whether or not the female share of student athletes is similar to the female share of undergraduates," Scamell said. "
Scamell also noted in the report that Houston’s grade of C- is average for Conference-USA schools and only slightly below the average B- grade for Division I-A schools.
Softball head coach Kyla Holas and soccer head coach Susan Bush declined to comment or to allow their teams to comment.
Kinesiology junior Jessica Stewart, an intramural women’s basketball player, said she feels that women should have a say in their salary.
"I think women should speak up if they are getting paid less than men, no matter what the factors are," she said.
Civil Engineering junior Batrice Thomas said that women are capable of doing the same job as men and should be evaluated by the same criteria.
"As long as we have the same qualifications I would be outraged, but if he had better qualifications than me I would understand the difference," she said.
Additional reporting by Deanna Mendoza and Ruth Rodriguez
