Boylen gets 5 million reasons to stay at U.

Here come five more years of "I-love-my-guys" and "I'm-so-gratefuls."

Which, for the University of Utah, is a good thing.

The Utes need that stuff.

Jim Boylen, the irrepressible men's basketball coach, signed a new five-year contract Tuesday. With radio and TV rights, camps, appearance fees, public speaking, fund-raising and a shoe contract, he will make $850,000-$1 million a year. Five million dollars is a lot of money, but Boylen seems to be a lot of coach.

He'll be the guy sweating through his $100 red-striped dress shirt.

The guy with bloodshot eyes and chronic laryngitis.

Hey, it's a long season.

If Boylen has shown anything in two years as the Utes' head coach, it's that he cares — at least if you judge by the hugs and tears. The man should have his own daytime talk show. He wants to fix everything and everyone and leave them feeling good about themselves.

His aforementioned phrases about guys and gratitude show up almost every day.

He's a jump-in-with-both-feet sort of guy.

Apparently so is athletics director Chris Hill, who announced Boylen's new deal after just two years of an original five-year contract.

"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.

That's pretty confident, considering they shared the conference title this year.

Hill went on to say Boylen had "shown a great deal of commitment and loyalty to this program and university."

That undoubtedly included Boylen not going after jobs at Memphis and Arizona after the season ended. His explanation: "I love Utah" and "I like my guys."

That sort of thing never gets old at schools in the Mountain West, where jobs are often viewed as stepping-stones.

The raise — which far outstrips his original $550,000 deal — came quickly. After all, Boylen has had one mediocre season (18-15) and one really nice one (24-10). If giving him a raise seems reckless, that's how it works in college sports. Seldom does anyone stick with the original deal — not the school or the coach. The coach usually gets fired or leaves for a higher-paying position. A good year or two, and it's time to redo the contract. If that doesn't happen, in many cases he'll use that as an excuse to shop for other jobs. It's the never-ending search for job security.

Yet Boylen neither talked publicly about moving on nor lobbied for a better contract. Unlike longtime coach Rick Majerus, who made it no secret he was happy to consider other positions, Boylen's name quickly disappeared from the list at other schools.

Maybe that's because he didn't sound terribly interested in.