Athens - Georgia basketball coach Dennis Felton on Wednesday got two years added to his contract and $200,000 added to his pay. Now comes the hard part: Proving he's worth it.
The pay raise and contract extension - good through June of 2011 - were approved by the executive committee of the Georgia Athletic Association board of directors late Wednesday afternoon on the recommendation of athletics director Damon Evans and UGA President Michael Adams. In return, they hope to see the program continue to make the improvement it did this past season, when the Bulldogs (19-14) won four more games than the previous year and advanced to the second round of the NIT.
"Obviously the contract extension is saying that we have confidence in our basketball coach," Evans said Wednesday evening. "We've made a lot of improvement the last couple of years and we think it will continue."
Felton and Evans met on Friday and spent most of the time evaluating the team's performance and discussing the prospects for the future. Eventually, they got around to his contract.
"It was real simple," Felton said. "We got together, he told me this is what he'd like to do and I said, 'that's great.'"
The contract extension was necessary because Felton had only two years remaining on his original six-year agreement. It's nearly impossible to recruit in the rugged SEC unless you can assure prospects you'll be at a school their entire careers. And even with the $50,000-a-year raise, Felton's compensation package (now $760,000 a year) still ranks in the bottom half of SEC coaches.
The gestures are a show of faith that Georgia's athletic hierarchy believes Felton will get the program turned around. To date, Felton is 58-62 in four seasons and 22-42 in SEC regular-season play.
In addition to winning four more games (three more in SEC play), the Bulldogs made improvement in virtually every statistical category. They improved in points (75.1), shooting (.462), rebounding (37.9) and defended better (.438) than the previous season.
Georgia expects to return four starters - including leading scorers Takais Brown and Mike Mercer and point guard Sundiata Gaines, who led in everything else - and nine lettermen.
To that it will add four highly-touted freshman: 6-foot-9 forward Jeremy Price of Decatur, 6-foot-8 forward Chris Barnes of College Park, 6-foot-7 wing Jeremy Jacobs of Hargrave Military Academy and 6-foot-1 guard Zac Swansey of Dunwoody.
Also, the Bulldogs will open a new $30 million practice and training facility this summer.
Felton said he doesn't feel any additional pressure in light of the richer deal.
"I really don't feel there can be any more pressure than there already is," he said with a laugh.
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