Pay booms in hard times: At many colleges, education takes hit but athletic budgets continue to grow in recession

USA Today reports:

Jeff Tedford is a proven, program-building football coach who makes no apologies for the contract extension he landed before this season — and the $2.8 million in pay he's guaranteed this year — from the University of California.

He's on board, too, with more than $430 million in planned improvements to Cal's venerable Memorial Stadium. They'll make the 86-year-old bowl more earthquake-resistant, and the upgrades should catch the eyes of football recruits.

"So yeah," Tedford says, speaking over the clatter of construction outside his office, "it's a big deal."

Here and elsewhere across the landscape of big-time, big-budgeted college athletics, these are sensitive times.