BLACKSBURG -- Virginia Tech yesterday released the details of a financial agreement designed to keep Bud Foster as the Hokies' defensive coordinator. If Foster stays in that position for five years -- through the 2014 season -- he will receive $800,000.
Foster and the school reached the agreement in mid-December, after Georgia, Florida State and Florida contacted him about their vacant defensive coordinator positions. Georgia offered Foster the job, he said, "but it was serious with Florida State as well."
Tech Athletics Director Jim Weaver said he gave Foster the financial package at that time because "if he's going to be a defensive coordinator, we wanted him to be here at Virginia Tech." Weaver also said the amount of the payment would be released at a later date.
Foster and the school agreed on the $800,000 amount "right before Christmas," Weaver said, but the official announcement wasn't made until yesterday because other legal details had to be finalized.
If Foster leaves before the end of the 2014 season, he will not receive any of the $800,000. If he stays through that time, the money will be put into a "deferred compensation" retirement account, Weaver said, rather than into a traditional paycheck.
Should head coach Frank Beamer leave his job before the end of 2014, Foster will receive the $800,000 at the time of Beamer's departure. The agreement includes no provisions for Foster to eventually succeed Beamer, 63.
It also does not affect Foster's current contract. Last year, Tech paid him $402,000, according to a USA Today database of college football coaches' salaries, which includes assistant coaches' salaries for 100 of the 120 schools in the Football Bowl Subdivision. Foster's pay ranked 12th among all assistant coaches and seventh among defensive coordinators, according to the database.
Foster has a five-year rollover contract, which means the length of the contract is extended by one year after every season, so it always remains at five years.
Foster, 50, came to Tech with Beamer as an inside linebackers coach in 1987. He became defensive coordinator in 1995. His relationship with Beamer dates to 1979, Foster's junior season at Murray State, when Beamer became that school's defensive coordinator.
Contact Darryl Slater at (804) 649-6026 or dslater@timesdispatch.com.
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