UVA Basketball coach Tony Bennett is under contract through April 30, 2026, as is associate head coach Jason Williford.
The other associate head coach on Bennett’s staff, Ron Sanchez, is under contract through April 30, 2027.
Bennett’s last extension, his third in five years at that point, was signed in 2019, five years ago now, and there’s no record on file with UVA that he has been offered a follow-up extension.
This could lead you to believe that Bennett is done at the school when his two years are up.
Now that we know what we know about the contracts of his two top assistants, it’s possible that we have an answer to what’s in the works in terms of a succession plan.
Let’s explore.
First, to catch everybody up to speed, I came into this perimeter of wisdom through a public-records request to the University of Virginia, which provided me copies of the contracts that Williford and Sanchez are working under currently.
Sanchez inked his deal with UVA on June 8, 2023, after leaving his job as the head coach at Charlotte, which he had just led to a 22-14 finish in the 2022-2023 season, his fifth at the school.
Prior to taking the job at Charlotte, Sanchez had been Bennett’s top assistant at Virginia for nine years, and had been an assistant on Bennett’s staff at Washington State for his three years there.
Ahead of that that, Sanchez had served as director of basketball operations at Washington State under Dick Bennett, Tony’s father, and alongside Tony, who was an assistant coach and then associate head coach under his father, for three years.
That’s all to say, Tony Bennett and Ron Sanchez have been working together since they were cubs in the coaching profession.
Williford’s latest contract with UVA was signed on July 11, 2023, so, a month after Sanchez signed his deal.
Williford, a 1995 UVA alum who has been on Bennett’s staff at Virginia since Bennett’s first season at the school in 2009, gets a base salary of $341,116 with supplemental compensation of $92,212, for a total of $433,328, per his contract.
Sanchez gets a base salary of $200,000 plus supplemental compensation at $250,000, for a total of $450,000.
Sanchez also got a $100,000 one-time signing bonus on June 23, 2023, per his contract.
The rest of the contract language between the two is almost entirely word for word, aside from the end dates, with one other notable departure.
In Sanchez’s contract, we get this sentence:
“In the event of your termination without cause, the University will be obligated to pay you a severance benefit in the amount of your base salary existing at the time of termination for the remaining term of this agreement …”
Williford’s related contract language on this point comes with a parenthetical:
“In the event of your termination without cause (for any reason other than Tony Bennett voluntarily leaving the position of head coach), the University will be obligated to pay you a severance benefit in the amount of your base salary existing at the time of termination for the remaining term of this agreement …”
The parenthetical in Williford’s contract would seem to suggest that UVA wouldn’t owe Williford the money left on his deal if Bennett were to step down as head coach before their deals expire in 2026.
That detail isn’t in Sanchez’s contract, which, again, runs one year longer than both Williford’s contract and Bennett’s contract, into the 2026-2027 season.
So, the one guy is under contract through 2027, and gets paid the full amount due on his deal if Bennett steps down, and the other guy is under contract through 2026, and is on his own if Bennett decides to hang it up.
One of three things is possible here:
- Sanchez has the best agent in all of college basketball, for getting him a contract that goes a year beyond that of the contract of the head coach he is working for, and pays him even if his head coach quits a year early.
- Bennett has indicated that he is thinking of stepping down as early as after the 2024-2025 season, Sanchez is going to take over, and Williford will be moving on, and he’s on his own when he does (which, and I’m going the parenthetical route here for emphasis, seems pretty cold of UVA, if you ask me).
- Even if Bennett makes it two more years, UVA wanted to have Sanchez locked up, and he doesn’t have to go through the awkward situation of having to fire Williford as he puts together a new staff.
I’m not quite done with the public-records request on this one just yet.
I’ve got another request in with the FOIA office at UVA for the contracts of the rest of the staff to get a look at what they’re working with in terms of contract expiration dates and severance language.
That should give us more insight into the behind-the-scenes machinations.
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Chris Graham
