Utah Utes basketball: U. signs Boylen to extension

After just two years on the job, Utah basketball coach Jim Boylen is getting a large pay raise, which will make him one of the highest-paid coaches in state history.

Boylen, who led the Utes to the Mountain West Conference tournament championship as well as a share of the regular-season championship this past season, will make at least $850,000 per year and as much as $1 million with bonuses.

"I'm really thankful to the university and excited to keep the momentum going for what we're building," he said. "It shows that Dr. (Chris) Hill and President (Michael) Young are happy with what we're doing and the way we're doing it."

Besides the success on the court, the Utah basketball team has received consecutive scores of 980 (out of 1,000) on the annual APR scores that track academic progress for each school in the country.

"We are excited about the direction our basketball program is going under Jim and are confident that the best is yet to come," said Hill in a prepared statement. "Jim has shown a great deal of commitment and loyalty to this program and university.

"It was important to retain Jim not only for his coaching and recruiting skills, which are excellent, but for his tireless promoting of his sport and his commitment to his team's academics."

Boylen was considered strongly for the job opening at Arizona after the season, and he might have been offered the job if Sean Miller hadn't reconsidered and taken the job.

Since then, other schools' recruiters have tried to use that against Boylen and Utah.

"I'm tired of people saying I'm leaving and using that against us in recruiting," Boylen said. "This lets recruits know we're going to keep building this thing."

Boylen wouldn't give numbers but said he'd "lose a ton of money" if he left Utah early for another job.

"That's protection for them and there's also protection for me," he said. "It's a very fair deal for both sides."

The announcement of the new deal comes just two days after Hill was quoted in a Deseret News story on declining college budgets, saying, "we've pretty much told everybody, hey, there's no budget increases this year, no salary increases."

Hill also said the Utah athletic budget would be $200,000 to $300,000 in the red this year and that it could be worse next year.

While Boylen couldn't guarantee he'll be here for at least five years, he said, "I'm very happy here and my family is very happy. The community has been unbelievable to me."

Boylen's base salary will be $200,000 with the rest coming from radio and television rights, camps, appearance fees, public speaking, fundraising and official outfitter compensation from Adidas. His original contract in March of 2007 was for $550,000 plus incentives.

Utah football coach Kyle Whittingham signed a five-year, $6 million extension to his contract earlier this year.

Former coach Rick Majerus had a contract worth approximately $1 million in his final years at Utah.

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