Beneath Nate Oats' folksy charm, the Alabama coach is playing the leverage game in a high-stakes coaching market
Oats says he's just a humble coach who's happy to be at Alabama, but he has not signed a contract extension — and his buyout drops from an unrealistic $18 million to a more palatable $10 million next week.
CHICAGO — Nate Oats, according to Nate Oats, is just a high school PE teacher who got lucky. He’s an aw-shucks guy who can’t believe he’s making $5. 5 million this year to coach basketball at Alabama.
Why would he aspire to anything else, gosh darnit? “On March 15, my salary went up $500,000,” Oats said Thursday in response to a question about why he hasn’t agreed to a contract extension with one blue-blood job open already and more possibly headed that direction if Bill Self retires at Kansas . “I still can’t believe I’m getting paid this much.
I’m coaching basketball, guys. ” Oats wasn’t the only coach here at the NCAA tournament Midwest regional to be asked in various ways about the North Carolina job, which came open this week when Hubert Davis was fired . But he was certainly the most willing to engage on the topic aside from Tennessee’s 71-year-old Rick Barnes, who deadpanned “I’m from North Carolina” when informed he was the only coach of the four here whose name wasn’t being mentioned.
The coaching carousel is always the game within the game at the NCAA tournament as agents posture, schools get cornered into making big promises and coaches try to cleverly deflect interest in other jobs while leaving the door open just enough to avoid an embarrassing sound bite that will forever brand them as a liar. North Carolina’s opening — arguably the best job in college basketball — is one of those where it’s hard to say exactly the right thing. Unless you’re Oats and you don’t have a chance to begin with.
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