Temple's creative way to keep Al Golden

By Mike Gibson
The subject was broached to a high-ranking Temple official in the hallway of the Liacouras Center recently.
"How are we going to keep Al Golden?" a man asked the official. "I mean, not necessarily now but in the next year or two when he has some success?"
The guy in the know winked.
"We've got that taken care of," he said.
"You mean his salary?" the man said.
"Although he is well-paid, no. I can't get into specifics but it's taken care of ..."
One member of the search committee who shall remain nameless for obvious reasons filled in the blanks for us.
We've been told that Golden's contract states that he must not have any contact with any other school for most of the length of the current contract. At least five of the six years.
Golden's not only cool with that, he and his agent suggested it. They felt they could not achieve the level of success they wanted to achieve at Temple with any speculation about his future over the formative first few years.
Golden alluded to it as much the next day, when he said, "the university has made a commitment to me and my commitment to them is that I will build a house of brick, not straw."

"... this university has made a commitment to me and my commitment to them is that ... I will build a house of brick, not straw."
_ Al Golden on the day he was hired at Temple University

You can't finish the job when the neighbor uptown wants his house worked on, too.
One of the best-kept secrets coming out of Golden's initial press conference over a year ago was his salary.
Temple athletic director Bill Bradshaw wasn't talking.
Then Temple president David Adamany wasn't talking.
Nobody on the board of trustees was talking.
Nobody on the search committee was talking.
Then.

But the night before, an excited Golden _ perhaps not knowing about the next day's gag rule _ was open enough about it to a Richmond Times-Dispatch reporter. Golden is making $575,000 a year _ more than double what the highest salary of the current best-paid Mid-American Conference coach makes. This is an impressive commitment by any standards.
When you are willing to make that kind of financial commitment to an unproven young coach, the people making that investment wanted protection.
Temple got that protection. It's the kind of protection Idaho didn't think about getting when it went after Dennis Erickson. Maybe it should have.
In fact, the plan was formulated by members of the search committee and Golden and his agent signed off on it before he was even selected for the job.
Al Golden is going nowhere until this brick house is the envy of all in the MAC neighborhood.
And when it is finished, chances are Golden is going to want to enjoy living in it for awhile.