UPDATE: Purdue defeated McNeese State, 76-62, Saturday as the Cowboys came up short in their bid to reach the Sweet 16.
March Madness underdog McNeese spent $1.72 million on men’s basketball last season. It will receive a $1 million buyout when head coach Will Wade leaves following the NCAA Tournament.
McNeese hired Wade in 2023, a year after he was abruptly fired by LSU on the eve of the tournament amid an NCAA investigation. He’s led the Cowboys to the NCAA Tournament in both seasons in Lake Charles, including an upset of Clemson in the first round on Thursday. Prior to that game, ESPN reported that he’d agreed to become the next head coach at North Carolina State when the Cowboys’ run ends.
Wade’s agreement with McNeese was both a lifeline and a stepping stone. The coach and school appear to have mutually understood that Wade was unlikely to be there for any length of time—athletic director Heath Schroyer told The Athletic that Wade promised him he’d stay for two years, which is exactly what the school ended up getting.
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Wade signed a new five-year contract in the middle of his first season at McNeese. His base salary in the deal is $700,000 per year, half paid by the school and half paid by the McNeese State University Foundation, according to a copy of the contract, obtained via records request. The agreement also included priced buyouts for what he would owe the school if he left in any of the first four years. That fee was $1.25 million in Year One, $1 million in Year Two, $500,000 in Year Three, and $350,000 in Year Four.
The $1 million buyout—which would have fallen to $500,000 if Schroyer had left before Wade—is more than half of the school’s men’s basketball budget.
“We had a two-year plan, [and] it’s been two years,” McNeese president Wade Rousse told The Athletic. “Now we have a full follow-up plan in place for what’s next. We’re ready.”
In addition to his base pay, Wade earned $10,000 this year for winning the Southland Conference regular season title, $30,000 for winning the league’s postseason tournament, $15,000 for being named the Southland Coach of the Year and $25,000 for winning an NCAA Tournament game. Each successive NCAA Tournament win will net him another $25,000.
McNeese has grabbed a number of headlines this week—not just for its upset and Wade’s employment future, but also thanks to the team’s student manager, Amir Khan, who went viral on social media and is now signing NIL deals.
The March Madness success is already paying dividends for the university, according to Wade.
“This is huge for our school,” he said following the Clemson win, before rattling off a series of statistics that weren’t immediately verifiable. “Our enrollment is up 3%, applications are up 10%. We got freaking $25 million in advertisements in the last couple of weeks. It’s going through the roof. … It changes everything.”
(This story has been updated with the result of Saturday’s second-round NCAA Tournament game between Purdue and McNeese State.)
