Arkansas football non-compete agreement details

FAYETTEVILLE – Arkansas soccer coach Sam Pittman made an impromptu look on ESPN in October 2020 with Scott Van Pelt to debate how he was going to show this system round.

Pittman was just below a yr into his first head teaching job, and Van Pelt requested if Arkansas felt like residence.

“That is it for me,” Pittman stated. “I am not inquisitive about another program. Arkansas is really the best program in America to me. We’re residence, and that is the place we wish to be. This might be my final job.”

A yr and a half later, Pittman has a model new contract to stay at Arkansas by means of 2027. He’ll earn $6 million per yr together with retention pay. Web page 16 of the deal features a part that helps show Pittman’s feedback on TV weren’t simply pandering to followers.

The contract features a “covenant to not compete.” In essence, Pittman agreed to not search or settle for a head teaching or assistant place at another SEC faculty in the course of the contract. Except he’s fired “for comfort,” or with out trigger, Pittman can’t work for one more coach within the SEC till after 2027, or every time his contract is up ought to it’s prolonged through the incentives it accommodates.

Even when Pittman resigns or is fired for trigger, he can’t pursue one other SEC job.

Pittman is not the primary Arkansas soccer coach to have such language in his contract. Each Bobby Petrino and Bret Bielema’s offers contained comparable non-compete agreements. Chad Morris’ contract didn’t preclude him from teaching elsewhere within the SEC, however did include a “covenant to not disclose proprietary info.”

ARKANSAS FOOTBALL:How Arkansas soccer coach Sam Pittman’s contract could make him much more than $5M a season

SEC FOOTBALL:All-SEC playoff for faculty soccer? What Arkansas AD Hunter Yurachek informed Paul Finebaum

RIVALRY:Listed below are 10 soccer rivalries the SEC should protect in any respect prices after growth

After he “shot (his) mouth off,” as Pittman himself known as it, on TV in 2020, the noncompete settlement nearly actually places his cash the place his mouth is. It is serving to him win the hearts of followers together with his loyalty, and it is a increase in recruiting, too.

“We’re considered one of eight applications of 130 which have the 2 coordinators and the top coach coming again for yr three,” Pittman informed reporters Tuesday. “I believed we might promote some stability, and that is why I needed it within the contract. I informed the individuals of Arkansas that this is able to be my final job, and I needed a chunk of paper to verify what my mouth stated.”

Pittman’s deal was finalized on the SEC spring conferences in Destin, Florida, the place he stated he, males’s basketball coach Eric Musselman, girls’s basketball coach Mike Neighbors and different Arkansas workers had been in a position to have a good time accordingly.

“It was an honor that the college thought sufficient of me to provide me an extended contract and clearly monetary good thing about that,” Pittman stated. “But additionally very humbling and an honor that so long as we are able to maintain successful, I could possibly be the top coach at Arkansas for a number of years, and that was the objective of it.”

Christina Lengthy covers the Arkansas Razorbacks. You possibly can e mail her at clong@swtimes.com or comply with her on Twitter @christinalong00.