The 11 Big Ten Presidents and Chancellors Who Killed Fall Football Too Soon

After three weeks of dragging their feet and refusing to disclose how many and which presidents and chancellors voted to postpone Fall football season, the Big Ten finally acknowledged in court that the vote was 11-3. Shortly thereafter, the conference told reporters that the dissenting votes were Iowa, Nebraska, and Ohio State. (We’d all inferred this, but it was never formally acknowledged, and inconsistencies of public statements made us wonder if there was ever actually an official vote.)

August 11th was too soon to cancel Fall football season. As SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey said at the time, it wasn’t definite that football season could happen, but it was too early to declare it dead. Since then, a potentially game-changing new saliva test emerged that is rapid and inexpensive. The SEC, ACC, and Big 12 did not follow the Big Ten and Pac-12 as the latter expected them to do under media pressure. The NFL has thus far refuted the idea that sports can only happen in a bubble; as of Monday afternoon, just five players out of about 2,600 currently on pre-final-cut rosters were on the league’s Covid reserve list. (It had reached as low as one over the weekend.)

The question is rapidly turning to whether the Big Ten presidents and commissioner Kevin Warren would ever admit that they acted too soon and, and return to play. Murmurs are floating around that coaches and ADs are pushing to play as soon as October, which could put teams on a path to compete for the playoffs. There were reports this week that there was talks of Thanksgiving. Then the conference dismissed it, floating an old plan to play in the winter that was bad three weeks ago and is still bad. Nothing illustrates concern for player safety like changing the season from being outside in temperate weather to being inside in the peak of flu season plus putting their bodies through 18 or more games in a calendar year. Let’s see if these private fights become public.

These are the 11 Big Ten chancellors and presidents who voted to postpone football season and their salaries (via Chronicle of Higher Education unless otherwise noted). All of them earn in the top 1% of annual income, which was $475,116 in 2019. We’ve also listed their emails — if you do choose to email them, please be polite as you’re more likely to have influence with them with respectful logic:

Illinois

Chancellor: Robert Jones
Base pay: $666,393
Total pay: $737,340
Email: chancellor@illinois.edu

Indiana

President: Michael McRobbie
Base pay:  $633,504
Total pay: $952,239
Email: iupres@iu.edu

Maryland

President: Darrell J. Pines
Total pay: Not available yet as he just took the job, but he made $383,000 in his job before becoming president in July, and his predecessor Wallace Loh had $731,554 in total compensation in 2019.
Email: president@umd.edu

Michigan

President: Mark Schlissel
Base pay: $868,171
Total pay: $920,295
Email: presoff@umich.edu

Michigan State

President: Samuel Stanley
Base pay: $800,000
Total pay: Potentially $1 million per year with bonuses
Email: PresidentStanley@msu.edu

Minnesota

President: Joan Gabel
Base pay: $640,000
Total pay: $790,000 (Source)
Email: upres@umn.edu

Northwestern

President: Morton Shapiro
Total pay: Northwestern is a private school so his salary is not a matter of public record, but the Chronicle of Higher Education listed him as making $1.8 million in 2017.
Email: nu-president@northwestern.edu

Penn State

President: Eric J. Barron
Base pay:  $844,796
Total pay: $1,118,247
Email: president@psu.edu

Purdue

President: Mitch Daniels
Base pay: $409,379
Total pay: $962,412
Email: president@purdue.edu

Rutgers

President: Jonathan Holloway
Base pay: $780,000 (Source)
Email: Contact form here.

Wisconsin

Chancellor: Rebecca Blank
Base pay: $571,202
Total pay: $628,135
Email: Chancellor@wisc.edu

Another good resource: Omaha.com compiled photos of all of these chancellors and presidents, and all of the statements they have (or in many cases have not) made about the postponement of football season.

If you know anything more about this story, contact Glasspiegel.Ryan@gmail.com.