Ron Zook: The $1 Million Man

Coach highest paid employee of any Illinois school

By TOM FORNELLI

Updated 5:35 PM CST, Sat, Jun 6, 2009

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It's no secret that big time college athletic programs in football and basketball can be a cash cow for their schools. Every year these athletic teams bring millions of dollars into the schools they represent through ticket sales, merchandise, bowl appearances, and just about anything the NCAA can cash in on.

It's also no secret that the students who attend these schools and play the sports that bring in all this money don't get to see any of it. Hey, you led the football team to the Rose Bowl and earned a nice $14 million payday for the conference (in BCS bowl games money is distributed evenly amongst all conference schools instead of just the school appearing in the game), thanks a lot. Here's your $20 for meal money. Have a great weekend!

It doesn't really seem all that fair when you get down to it, does it? Yeah, those athletes get their education but it's a rare occasion that a diploma is worth $14 million. So where does all this money go? Well, a lot of it goes back to the athletic departments of the schools involved, some goes into renovations for the school and other improvements, and apparently whatever's left goes into Illinois head football coach Ron Zook's bank account.

There are 69,000 people who work for public universities in Illinois, and none of them is paid as much as Ron Zook, the University of Illinois' football coach, a Chicago Sun-Times analysis shows.

Zook was paid nearly $1 million to coach the Illini last year.

Even Zook's top assistant, Michael Locksley, made more than most top officials of Illinois' state universities.

Locksley has since moved on to take the head coaching job at the University of New Mexico where he'll probably be taking a paycut. The Sun-Times article also goes on to mention that former Illinois head coach, and current Chicago Bears offensive coordinator, Ron Turner made $235,000 from the University last season even though they fired him five years ago.

Must be nice, huh?

Just don't let any of the actual athletes see a dime of that money because that would be a tragedy. Think of the sanctity of the game!

Along with writing for NBCCHICAGO.com, Tom Fornelli can also be found contributing at FanHouse, SPORTSbyBROOKS, and his own Chicago sports blog Foul Balls.