The NC State Wolfpack have had a busy offseason in the collegiate swim coach job market, adding three new assistants to their staff in June.
The splashiest hire was former Utah Tech head coach Dan Kesler, who joined the program as an associate head coach. The team also made a pair of internal hires – giving Michael Baric a salary after one season as a volunteer assistant, and moving Kevin Happ from a Director of Operations role to a paid coaching position.
While the team lost one coach, Brian Barnes, to Duke, where he will now lead the program, they added three, resulting in an expansion of the staff, and staff salaries.
New Coaching Hires Salaries:
- Kesler – $85,000
- Happ – $57,175
- Baric – $35,568
Kesler also received a $7,500 relocation bonus.
For Happ, the only of the three who was already employed at the school, this represents a significant raise from his prior 2017 contract. That included a $45,000 annual salary, along with up to a $2,500 reimbursement for moving expenses.
Baric’s salary of $35,568 per year is the minimum salary in the state of North Carolina to exempt an individual from overtime pay.
Full Staff Salaries:
- Braden Holloway – $144,000 (+$100,000 annual supplement)
- Dan Kesler – $85,000
- Mark Bernardino – $80,000
- Wesley Mattice (diving) – $63,653 (approximate)
- Kevin Happ – $57,175
- Dan Kalupski – $52,495
- Stefani Weigle – $52,000 (+$5,000 car stipend)
- Michael Baric – $35,568
This makes NC State’s total staff base contracted salary come to $669,891 per year (plus some listed bonuses for Holloway, and any other compensation from boosters, camp money, or similar).
The best comparison to other ACC programs comes from Virginia Tech, where head coach Sergio Lopez’s latest contract included guaranteed assistant coaching salary pools through the 2027-2028 season. That clause begins with a $335,000 pool next season and escalates to $395,000 in the 2027-2028 season. That is comparable to what NC State is doing, where the above-listed assistant coaching salaries add up to $362,238.
Those ranges are similar to what we see from other top 20 type programs, though NC State has distributed those salaries among a wider group of seven swim coaches whereas some programs will instead concentrate more of that money in one highly-paid assistant or associate.
As the economics of collegiate athletics undergo dramatic shifts and changing pressures in the next few years, these hires, most of which have been made at the starting points of the changes, will serve as a functional baseline for how spending on collegiate swimming & diving programs will change.
Mighty expensive fourth-place ribbon…
Wow. So cheap. Colleges are paying so little for the amount of teaching they provide these athletes. You could work almost any place in tech and make 4 times as much and still go volunteer coach. The big schools pay millions for other programs that provide…well. maybe alumni needs to provide more?
It’s not nearly enough money for some of the assistants, but in total it’s kind of a lot of money. How many swimmers does NC State have? It seems like the school is providing >$10000 of coaching per swimmer, plus all the other costs for facilities, travel, equipment, etc. Thinking of it this way, it’s surprising that so many colleges have swim teams.
Whatever happened to Graduate Assistants? Seems like a great method to offset costs but offer alot. By offering a $40-60000 or more tuition waiver it is a great benefit but definitely doesn’t cost the school nearly that much to add a student to their graduate school. And if they study something in biomechanics, psychology, physiology etc it could benefit the team. Or are some of these guys working on graduate degrees and getting free tuition.
Maybe some of these assistants are able to take advantage of this because they are full time employees?
Bernadino is worth MUCH more than his base! He is a genius. Go PACK!
Gallant and Dant 1-2 in 1650 this year at ncaa
go hoos
Correct me if I’m wrong but didn’t Michael baric go from an assistant coach at UNC to a volunteer assistant coach at NC State before just now getting promoted to assistant coach there
Where’s his: ‘I’d work for free to get away from Gangloff’ quote?
I think most would put up with a boss over literally making no income in their late twenties?
All this to finish 4th again to 5th year merchants in Berkeley, Indiana Diving and Swimming, and creepy coach Bowman’s IMers in Tempe
Give it a rest. We get it
It would be nice to see comparison of NC Stats vs other UNC institutions. It would give a great idea for future coaches (and current) how financially look like for top tier programs vs mid major.