When it comes to maximizing earning power and realizing unthinkable wealth, college football coaches have a unique opportunity that no other occupations provide: get fired, preferably multiple times.
Failed football coach Tyrone Willingham made a fortune as an unemployed coach and amateur golfer, simultaneously collecting multi-million dollar buyouts and annual salaries from both Notre Dame and Washington — two schools that showed him the door.
Remember Charlie Weis? The former Irish coach who was fired in 2009? He’s still getting paid by Notre Dame more than five years after his dismissal, and is also owed a $6 million buyout from Kansas from when he was fired there four games into last season.