After recommitting to Chip Kelly with a new four-year, $22-million contract last month on the eve of the coach’s buyout expiring, UCLA left itself on the hook for a relatively small amount if things go sour over the next two seasons.
Kelly’s contract, reviewed by The Times on Friday, calls for him to receive 70% of his remaining salary, talent fee and retention bonuses through Dec. 15, 2023, were the school to dismiss him without cause before that date. Kelly is scheduled to make $4.6 million in salary and talent fees in 2022 and $4.8 million each in 2023, 2024 and 2025. His contract also includes $1 million retention bonuses to be paid on Dec. 15, 2022, as well as the same date in 2023 and 2024.
So, for example, if UCLA were to dismiss Kelly the day after next season ended, it would owe only 70% of his remaining salary, talent fee and retention bonus through Dec. 15, 2023, which would be roughly $4.06 million.
Kelly, who has gone 18-25 in his first four seasons at UCLA, would owe the Bruins $3 million if he left the school before the final game of the 2022 season. If Kelly were to depart before the end of the 2023 season, he would owe the school $1.5 million.
So the skids are greased to throw Chip on the trash heap of history. 50/50 chance he dies in flagrante delicto like 1/6 of UCLA coaches do--in his case it will be dude not a whore whos there when he dies, unlike Red Sanfers. In either case UCLA management will review his performance through a Marxist Hagelian dialectic.