Former Vanderbilt basketball coach Jerry Stackhouse paid over $4 million in 2022, records show

Former Vanderbilt basketball coach Jerry Stackhouse received over $4 million in compensation during the 2022 calendar year, according to federal tax records acquired by The Tennessean.

Because Vanderbilt is a private school, full contracts are not available via public records requests. However, the university is required to file a 990 tax form detailing the compensation of its highest-paid employees within 18 months of the end of each calendar year. The records for 2022 were the most recent that were available.

The university, via the tax form, reported a base compensation of $3,408,949 for Stackhouse in 2022, plus $340,082 in bonuses and incentives, $277,567 in retirement and deferred compensation, $22,163 in other compensation and $1,830 in nontaxable benefits.

In the 2021 calendar year, Stackhouse was paid $2,976,063 in base compensation and $3,197,282 in total. Stackhouse signed a contract extension in October 2022. It is not known how much of the increase in pay came from the extension versus escalators in his previous contract. Stackhouse also received higher bonus pay and deferred compensation in 2022 than in 2021.

At the time Stackhouse received the extension, Vanderbilt was coming off a 19-17 season that included a run to the NIT quarterfinals. The Commodores cited as a reason for the extension that Stackhouse had improved the program after Vanderbilt went 0-18 in Bryce Drew's final season in 2018-19. The 2021-22 season was the Commodores' first winning season since 2017.

For the 2021-22 season, eight of the 13 SEC public school coaches were paid less than Stackhouse's base pay of over $3.4 million, including Alabama's Nate Oats.

Stackhouse and Vanderbilt parted ways in March 2024 after a 9-23 season. In five seasons with the Commodores, Stackhouse never qualified for the NCAA tournament, though he did make two NIT runs.

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Jerry Stackhouse paid more than Clark Lea in 2022

Stackhouse's compensation was significantly higher than Clark Lea's pay in 2022. Vanderbilt reported Lea's base salary as $2,984,792 and his total pay as $3,189,744, which also includes bonuses, deferred compensation and benefits.

Lea's pay in 2022 was slightly higher than in 2021, when he made $3,051,881. Although his reported base compensation in 2022 was about $1,000 lower than in 2021, when it was $2,985,712, Lea earned $139,000 in bonuses in 2022 after receiving no bonus compensation in 2021.

In 2022, Lea made less than every SEC football coach except South Carolina's Shane Beamer. Beamer received a significant raise for 2023.

Lea received a contract extension during the summer of 2023. His current salary terms are not available.

The Gamecocks fired men's basketball coach Frank Martin after the 2021-22 season, but before his firing, Martin was one of two other SEC basketball coaches to make more than his football counterpart in 2022. Kentucky's John Calipari − now at Arkansas − was the other.

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Derek Mason still received buyout from Vanderbilt football in 2022

After his firing in December 2020, Mason received $2,166,660 in both 2021 and 2022, bringing his total severance paid in those two years to $4,333,320. Mason was paid $3.1 million in his final season in 2020.

Former athletic director Malcolm Turner had severance payments reported on Vanderbilt's 990 forms in both 2020 and 2021, but no such payment was reported in 2022.

How much was Candice Lee paid in 2022?

Athletic director Candice Lee was paid a total of $960,167 in 2022, the records show. In 2021, she was paid $948,464.

Lee's base pay increased from $693,323 to $771,615, but she received less money in bonuses. In 2021, Lee received $189,313 in bonuses and in 2022 she received $112,500.

Lee also signed an extension in the summer of 2023, the terms of which are unknown.

Tennessee's Danny White was the highest-paid athletic director in the SEC in 2022, making $1.89 million.

USA TODAY sports projects reporter Steve Berkowitz contributed to this report.

Aria Gerson covers Vanderbilt athletics for The Tennessean. Contact her at agerson@gannett.com or on Twitter @aria_gerson.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Records reveal Vanderbilt coaches pay in 2022, including Jerry Stackhouse