Cleveland State men’s basketball coach, which is off to one of the fastest starts in Vikings history in terms of wins, has been rewarded with a contract extension and a raise. Originally reported by WKYC’s Nick Camino, then confirmed in a story by cleveland.com’s Terry Pluto, it appears that Robinson will be remaining at CSU.
The contract amendment, as obtained by the HoriZone Roundtable, contains much of what was outlined by Pluto. The one wrinkle to this contract extension that wasn’t in the original reporting, though, was the date when it was signed. It was fully executed by Robinson, then-interim athletic director Kelsie Gory Harkey and Cleveland State president Laura Bloomberg this past May. Gory Harkey was subsequently elevated to full-time AD until next May, the details of her contract were outlined in the July 10th edition of the #HLMBB Starting Five.
Normally, news of a contract extension would be something to be celebrated, and the work that Robinson’s first two years at the helm certainly qualifies. So why did it take over six months for it to be publicized?
It might have a little something to do with the stories of ongoing financial issues at CSU, capped off by the Ernst & Young report, which was released three days after Dr. Bloomberg signed Robinson’s extension. Kyle Rossi wrote about the full breadth of the report and its impact to Cleveland State’s athletic department.
While Robinson’s extension nets him a raise that, in the grand scheme of things, is a drop in the overall CSU bucket, it seems as if announcing that as faculty and staff were faced with taking buyouts of their own to shore up the university budget would have been pretty poor form. And with faculty members, specifically leaders of Cleveland State’s professor’s union, expressing their displeasure with Athletics prior to the Ernst & Young report, it was probably best to let this news come out at a later date, like, say, late November.
Here are the key points of Robinson’s updated contract, as previously reported:
- Robinson originally signed with Cleveland State for a base salary of $325,000. He will now make $13,000 more, boosting his base to $338,000.
- Initially, Robinson was signed to a contract that expired in 2027. This has now been revised to 2029, making this, in effect, a two-year extension.
- In terms of buyout should Robinson take another job, it starts at $500,000 if he leaves before April 2025, then goes down to $300,000 in April 2026, $200,000 in April 2027 and $100,000 in April 2028. The buyout was originally set at the balance of his contract should he leave prior to May 1, 2026.
- There are no additional changes to Robinson’s contract, the details of which can be found in the story written by Jaden Stambolia for CSU’s student newspaper, The Cauldron. These include:
- Team Performance Bonuses (Included $10,000 for the Horizon League regular season championship, $15,000 for a conference tourney championship and various national tournament bonuses).
- A $25,000 bonus, if the team meets NCAA APR requirements and conduct standards, as well as University policies and procedures.
- Non-conference scheduling must produce a minimum of $180,000 in revenues from so-called buy games.
- The assistant coaching staff salary poll is set at a maximum of $450,000.
- Academic performance bonuses, including APR bonuses ranging from $7,500 for APR over to 975 to $12,500 for an APR of 1,000, plus a $10,000 for All-Academic Team honors and GPA bonuses.
Effectively, the contract extension and raise are significant in that it keeps Robinson for another two years, which, with his son Reece currently on the roster, would put the expiration of this deal a year out of his graduation.
The full contract amendment can be found below:
