Kiaira Ladd
A lot of attention was paid to Arizona basketball recruit Terry Armstrong last week. The four-star recruit from Michigan, generally ranked in the top 100 of most recruiting polls, has chosen not to enroll at the UA and will instead turn pro.
It was a significant loss, but the biggest loss in the UA basketball department got no public attention. It was last week’s resignation of Kiaira Ladd, the school’s senior academic counselor for men’s basketball and men’s and women’s swimming.
Ladd is a keeper; she will be deeply missed inside the basketball and swimming programs.
Before arriving at Arizona two years ago, Ladd was the director of football academics at Washington, working directly with Huskies head football coach Chris Petersen and about 100 UW football players.
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I’m not directing blame at anyone for Ladd’s departure from the UA’s academic services staff, but in a university setting it seems amiss that a person of Ladd’s expertise and experience was paid $57,000, which was less than all three of UA’s full-time assistant swimming coaches and nowhere near the $134,946 paid to the strength and conditioning coach for the Wildcats’ men’s basketball team.
The mission here is still to educate and graduate students, right?
But somewhere along the way, 20 or 25 years ago, the compensation to coaches and administrators got wildly out of proportion compared to their contribution to a student-athlete’s experience.
