Alvarez to Earn $118,500 to Coach Wisconsin at the Rose Bowl

Barry Alvarez is set to make bank for coaching his former Wisconsin Badgers football team in this year’s Rose Bowl

The 65-year-old Latino football coach, the team’s coach from 1990 to 2005, will earn $118,500 for returning to the sideline to coach on January 1. And should the Badgers beat Stanford, he’ll get a $50,000 bonus.

Barry Alvarez

The executive committee of the university’s Board of Regents this week agreed to the terms after the surprise departure last week of coach Bret Bielema to take the same job at Arkansas.

During his span as Wisconsin’s coach, Alvarez won the Rose Bowl three times. The money for the coaching job will come out of Bielema’s $1 million buyout to be paid by Arkansas.

Alvarez will receive $195,000 in December, which is 90% of Bielema’s monthly coaching salary. He also will get $8,500, which is 10% of his athletics director salary. The total pay of $203,500 is a one-time $118,500 increase in his monthly salary.

“We weighed the factors involved, including the unique circumstances that developed less than a month before the game, the challenges of the job, the marketplace and his strength as a coach and concluded that this is a reasonable arrangement,” board President Brent Smith said.

Interim University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor David Ward said the pay package was fair and proportional.

“Coach Alvarez has a one-of-a-kind skill set that the university needs to be successful — both in the Rose Bowl and in attracting the best coaching candidates in the search for someone to lead the Badgers football program going forward,” Ward said.