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Big Red Business: More financial details on Will Bolt’s contract

New Nebraska baseball head coach Will Bolt stands to make a bonus of $45,000 if he wins a Big Ten Conference title and an additional $75,000 if he brings home the holy grail -- a College World Series title.

The performance bonus information was spelled out in Bolt’s contract, signed earlier this month and publicly released Tuesday by Nebraska’s athletic department.

The contract is straightforward -- $300,000 a year for five years -- making Bolt the highest-paid head coach in Nebraska baseball history.

Employment agreements for his two assistant coaches, Jeff Christy and Lance Harvell, were not publicly disclosed. Each coach is scheduled to earn $175,000 a year.

Bolt’s contract, which runs through June 30, 2024, spells out bonuses based on team performance. For example, he would earn a 15 percent bonus for a conference championship. And like the bonus packages for head coaches in other sports, additional money would kick in based on team performance and with the highest advancement payout rate applying.

He would earn a 5 percent bonus for post-season selection; 10 percent for advancing to the post-season top 16; a 20 percent bonus for a top-eight finalist; and a 25 percent bonus for a national championship.

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Other contract details 

*If Bolt resigns to accept another coaching position or other job, Bolt or his designee would be required to pay the university 50 percent of the coach’s annual salary.

*The university would be required to pay Boll a severance package of $25,000 multiplied by the number of full months remaining in his contract, in equal monthly installments, but not to exceed two times his annual compensation.

*His payback would be mitigated by landing a new job.

This is Bolt’s second head coaching position. After his stellar baseball career at Nebraska, Bolt held several baseball positions at Nebraska and Texas A&M before serving four years as head coach for Texarkana College. He led the team to four straight regional tournament appearances from 2008 to 2011.

In 2012, Bolt returned to Nebraska as an associate head coach under Darin Erstad, helping the team get back to the NCAA tournament in 2014.

After three seasons under Erstad, he was hired back at A&M as an assistant coach where he spent the last five seasons.

“Will Bolt has been a winner at every stop he has made as a coach and player, and I am proud to welcome him back to Lincoln as our next head baseball coach,” athletic director Bill Moos said in the release. “Will was a part of the most successful teams in the history of our baseball program, and he knows what it takes to win here.

“Will has proven to be an outstanding recruiter wherever he has coached. He understands the appeal of Nebraska and everything our baseball program and the university has to offer to student-athletes.”

Bolt’s salary likely ranks him somewhere in the top half among Big Ten coaches. HuskerOnline surveyed the seven schools, in addition to Nebraska, that played in the conference post-season tournament in Omaha in May. Of the schools that responded:

Iowa’s head coach earns a base salary of $325,000; Illinois’ head coach earns $350,000; Minnesota pays $231,800; and Maryland pays $231,936 .

Michigan's Erik Bakich, who earns about $400,000 annually, and Ohio State’s Greg Beals, who draws a salary of about $472,000, are the highest paid baseball coaches in the conference, according to published reports. However, Bakich will obviously receive a significant pay raise after this season’s College World Series run.

Indiana, through a freedom of information request, did not respond by publication date.

Steve Rosen covers the business of sports for HuskerOnline.com. Questions, comments, story ideas? Reach Steve at sbrosen1030@gmail.com.

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