Colorado Extends Mike Bohn's Contract

According to the Boulder Daily Camera, the University of Colorado has extended athletic director Mike Bohn's contract. The financial terms are not known as of now but it is rumored that Bohn's contract will be extended until 2016, two and half years longer than his current contract.

Chancellor Phil DiStefano said this about Bohn:

 "I think Mike has done a very good job as the athletic director and I think working together with Mike and the president's office to move out of the Big 12 and into the Pac-12 it took a lot of collaboration and cooperation and Mike was right there. I believe he deserves a contract extension."

Bohn's base salary of $300,000 is not supposed to increase much with the new extension but "new incentives related to fundraising will be added giving him the opportunity to earn more."

Kyle Ringo did a good job covering some of the ups and downs of Bohn's stay in the article. The biggest "up" has to be landing in the Pac-12 especially with the news of the $3.0 billion television contract that will drastically improve the financial situation of the athletic department. Bohn was credited with being very active in the conference realignment process to get Colorado into the Pac-12.

Bohn, though, has had his fair share of challenges since arriving in 2005 as well, especially on the playing field, which is why I find the timing of this a little interesting. Bohn's name has been floated around for other athletic director jobs but who knows how close he was to leaving Boulder or if that had something to do with this extension. I don't think anyone will argue that it would be nice to see a little more on the field success. 

In fairness, he came into a tough situation with all of the issues surrounding the football program. He hired Dan Hawkins, who at the time seemed like a slam dunk of a hire but, well, there are not many words to describe how that whole thing ended. The hiring is one thing but the contract extension in 2008 really put Colorado in a tough situation financially that didn't allow the University to buy out Hawkins at the end of the 2009-2010 season. Hawkins was finally fired at the end of the 2010-2011 season.

Men's basketball looks to be on the way back under Tad Boyle who took the team to the NIT tournament in his first year and set a record for the number of wins in a single season with 24. There was a great buzz around the program this past season and if Boyle can continue to recruit well and recover from losing the top four scorers from a year ago, things look bright. Bohn was also able to get a new practice facility built which should help both the men's and women's programs attract talent to Colorado.

But football still rules in Boulder and until that returns to competitive levels, there will always be questions around the job Bohn is doing. He was able to get both Jon Embree and Eric Bieniemy to return to Boulder and coach their alma mater which made many former players and supporters happy. It was a move to restore pride in the program and as Embree often says; change the attitude that it's a privilege to play football at the University of Colorado, something he felt was forgotten over the past few years. With new money coming into the athletic department, a new conference, new coaches and a different feeling around the football program, all signs point to a change of direction but at this point, there are many more questions than answers.