With Clemson paying its newest men’s basketball assistants more than $700,000 combined, Brad Brownell said the program is making a financial commitment to his coaching staff that hasn’t always been there.
It’s been more than a month since Brownell completed his staff with the additions of Billy Donlon and Sean Dixon, who are each on two-year contracts that run through the end of the 2023-24 season. Donlon is set to make $450,000 annually while Dixon’s base salary is $285,000, according to copies of their term sheets obtained by The Clemson Insider.
Dixon, who hails from the metro-Atlanta area, came to Clemson after previous stops as an assistant at Presbyterian, UNC-Asheville, and, most recently, Middle Tennessee State. But Brownell knew it would take more to land Donlon, who had coached under Brownell twice previously at UNC Wilmington and Wright State.
Donlon was the head coach at the University of Kansas City-Missouri the last three seasons before stepping down to take the job at Clemson. Without the kind of salary Clemson was willing to offer Donlon, though, Brownell isn’t convinced another reunion between the two would be happening.
“Billy Donlon was an example of when you had to pay a little more to get a guy of his stature, to get a guy who’s been a head coach,” Brownell said recently during Clemson’s Prowl & Growl tour.
That hasn’t always been the case, Brownell said.
He found himself pursuing Donlon and Dixon after two of his coaches left for other Power Five assistant jobs this offseason. Antonio Reynolds Dean left after five seasons at Clemson to be Mike White’s associate head coach at Georgia while Kareem Richardson’s stay on the Tigers’ bench lasted less than a full calendar year. Richardson will now be coaching against Brownell as part of Kevin Keats’ staff at North Carolina State.
According to the Athens Banner-Herald, Reynolds Dean will make $400,000 in annual compensation at Georgia, a $75,000 bump from his $325,000 base salary at Clemson. Richardson had a salary of $275,000 at Clemson while Dick Bender, the only assistant back from last season’s coaching staff, is making $250,000.
Asked during an offseason press conference about Reynolds Dean’s departure, Brownell said he didn’t know whether or not Reynolds Dean’s decision to leave was financially motivated, though he said he tried to retain Reynolds Dean “as much as you can.” But Brownell suggested that the Tigers’ relatively low salary pool compared to other programs in and around the ACC doesn’t help in those situations.
Total compensation for Clemson’s basketball staff for the 2020-21 season was $3,282,839, which ranked seventh out of the ACC’s eight public institutions, according to Sportico’s real-time database that tracks FBS athletic department’s revenues and expenses. Yet after the Tigers failed to reach the NCAA Tournament this past season with a 17-16 record – Clemson has missed the Big Dance in eight of Brownell’s 11 full seasons at the helm – first-year athletic director Graham Neff made it clear the program wasn’t meeting expectations.
“If you’re going to raise the level of expectations, you’ve got to meet it in every other thing,” Brownell said in April. “Your facilities. Your salaries for your staff. Your salaries for your coaches. … There are a lot of things that go into all of this.”
Brownell got a raise to $2.6 million in total compensation before this past season as part of a contract extension that runs his deal through the end of the 2025-26 season, but that was executed by former athletic director Dan Radakovich. Neff, who served as the supervisor for men’s basketball as part of his previous role as the school’s deputy athletic director, signed off on the higher salaries for Brownell’s newest assistants..
“He’s willing to spend more money on things if we need to spend more money,” Brownell said of Neff. “He’s willing to hire more staff if we need to hire more staff. He’s seen the things that have been done for football and how that’s affected winning, and there comes a point when you’ve got to do the same for other sports if you want to have the same kind of success. I think he stated that’s part of what he wants to do, and I’m excited about that.”
With the increased salary pool for his assistants, Brownell said the program is getting closer to having everything it needs to be more successful on and off the court.
“We’ve lost strength coaches and lost a few people (in the past) who were good when money’s been involved,” Brownell said. “Changes can be hard, especially when you lose somebody that’s good because you’re not always sure if the next hire is going to be as good. It’s a risk.
“You’ve got to spend money for quality people to retain them. I think retention of quality staff is incredibly important. I think that’s as important as anything.”
