Gov. Ron DeSantis is talking high school sports, and is making the case that football coaches in Florida don't make enough compared to those in other states, creating a potential competitive disadvantage.
During remarks at the Jacksonville Classical Academy, the Florida Governor said "how they treat football or some of the coaches in high school in Florida compared to some of these others is different."
"I don't want to say that money is everything, but I think you can make more money being like a high school football coach in Georgia because parents can do boosters and stuff and look, I know there's got to be guardrails on that, but I want it to be attractive to coach," DeSantis said.
Per ZipRecruiter, the average salary for high school football coaches in the state is $35,790. That's nearly $11,000 below the national average, and ranks Florida 49th out of 50 states.
"While ZipRecruiter is seeing salaries as high as $47,827 and as low as $8,220, the majority of High School Football Coach salaries currently range between $29,900 (25th percentile) to $37,400 (75th percentile) with top earners (90th percentile) making $47,826 annually in Florida."
However, it's unclear if Georgia presents the best example of a place where football coaches can go to get paid. That state's average coach makes just north of $37,000 a year, though Florida coaches have moved on to the Peach State, suggesting the reported number doesn't tell the whole compensation story.
The real money seems to be in places like Texas, where football coaches routinely make six-figure salaries in the land of Friday Night Lights, including 25 such coaches in the Houston metropolitan area alone.
Legislation was floated this year in partnership with the Florida Coaches Council that could have led to stipends of up to $22,500 for coaches in exchange for mandatory hour commitments.
"What we're asking is that coaching supplements be attached to mandatory hours paid for hours working as opposed to school districts guessing how many hours they're working," said Dr. Andrew Ramjit, Executive Director of the Florida Coaches Coalition, in comments to the Palm Beach Post earlier this year.
"That's just paying these coaches minimum wages. Coaches have been unfairly treated and overlooked for the job they put in. I like to call coaching the No. 1 dropout prevention program. The work coaches do is overlooked by school districts and teacher unions."
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