With all the stuff swirling around the Trail Blazers right now, this story slipped under a lot of people’s radar. It seems pretty incredible to me that Mike Bellotti, after just one year as the school’s AD, gets a check this big just as a going-away present.

I like Bellotti a lot and have all kinds of respect for the job he did there as the football coach. But he was well paid for that. But what really disturbs me is this part of the story:

Bellotti signed the agreement on March 16, the same day he announced the dismissal of basketball coach Ernie Kent and the day before he signed a deal with ESPN to provide analysis and color commentary for college football games.

So he signed an agreement (yeah, I bet it was a tough negotiation to get him to accept this deal — and by the way, WHO signed him to this sweetie of a deal?) on one day and left the next day? I should have checked the Eugene Register Guard before I wrote this. Ron Bellamy has the whole story of this thing. The university president signed the deal and it’s pretty obvious — he was basically paid off for vacating his job as the head football coach a year ago.

Wow.

At a time when the school is looking to give a huge contract to its next basketball coach? And may have to give the football coach a bump to match the basketball coach?

Man, athletic directors aren’t expensive to hire, they’re expensive to get rid of. This is the same school that had to give Bill Moos $2 million to buy him out three years ago. And now, $2.3 million to say goodbye to Bellotti?

That’s just crazy.

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I’m not big on succession plans for coaches. It’s kind of stupid to annoint someone as the next big thing without going out in the real world and looking around for someone better.

In the case of the Oregon Ducks, Chip Kelly damn well be the second coming of Bear Bryant to justify the school — with all it has going for it — not putting that head football coach job out there for anyone who wants to apply for it. I believe, given all the money and facilities on hand, some of the best coaches in the country would have been interested in the job.

Now I realize Kelly comes from the cradle of coaches, University of New Hampshire, but how do we know he’s the best available candidate? I mean, he’s NEVER been a head coach and I’m not sure how a university can feel totally comfortable handing over the keys to a program to someone who has never soloed before.

There are so many things that occupy a head coach’s time that an assistant coach doesn’t have to deal with — from discipline, to media, to big-time donors, to recruiting decisions, to practice planning for the entire squad. Kelly is a man who wants to run the offense. It’s his deal. How much time is he going to have to run his defense? His special teams? How well will he do it? How well will he choose and maintain his coaching staff?

Of course, the school got lucky when it elevated Bellotti from a coordinator job and hopes to duplicate the feat. I’m just not so sure it’s always that easy. A couple of years from now, in fact, this is either going to look like the greatest hire in school history or the biggest mistake.

I can’t for the life of me understand what’s gotten into Bellotti. I think the guy is a heck of a coach. And I don’t think he understands what a lousy job it is to be an AD in today’s world of college athletics. The constant begging boosters for money, the compliance and Title IX issues, the facility problems — ugh. It’s all the bad parts of sports without the rewards of being with the athletes and winning games.

Athletic director jobs these days are for pencil pushers. Number crunchers. Or hucksters. They’re not for solid coaches accustomed to the adrenaline rushes you get from winning games in front of 100,000 people at Michigan. I think Bellotti, on the whole, will grow to hate that job after a few years.

And then what?

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