A friend in the media has been insisting to another media friend that UVA and its athletics director, Carla Williams, had quietly agreed to a contract extension this spring, according to a well-placed source.
For some reason, this kind of thing falls upon me to fact-check.
I did what was asked.
The verdict: not true.
I submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the University for a copy of the current working contract agreement between UVA and Williams, and what I got back was a copy of the four-year deal that Williams signed in 2021, and expires on May 31, 2025.
That deal was a follow-up to the original four-year deal that Williams signed when she first took the AD job in 2017.
The language in the contract, which went into effect on June 1, 2021, noted that the 2017 deal was at a level of compensation that had Williams “fourteenth and among the fifteen athletics directors in the Atlantic Coast Conference.”
The current deal pays Williams well – with a base salary at $590,000 per year, supplemental compensation at $350,000 per year, and a deferred compensation benefit at $150,000 per year, so, a total of $1.09 million annually, with “increases in accordance with University policy,” “subject to favorable performance reviews.”
My attempt to Google “ACC athletics director salaries” didn’t come up with a good, recent list that I could trust, but as best as I can tell, from a list that was current as of 2021, the compensation package for Williams laid out in her contract puts her above the median in AD salary in the conference.
So, we have that going for us.
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Chris Graham
