Stanford University has come up with a nifty new perk to entice top coaches to come to its campus, which is situated in the most expensive real-estate market in the country: buy them a house, The New York Times reports.
Last winter, Stanford bought a four-bedroom house for its new defensive coordinator, Scott Shafer, and his family at a cost of nearly $2-million, the reporter, Pete Thamil writes. (He notes that the average price of a four-bedroom house near the university campus is $1.68-million.) “The university also purchased a similar home for the new offensive coordinator, David Shaw, and his wife, Kori, and their two children. The rest of the Stanford football coaching staff receives a $3,000-a-month housing allowance,” he writes.
It is all part of a new plan “being spearheaded by Bob Bowlsby, the athletic director, and backed in part financially by John Arrillaga, a billionaire Stanford booster. Bowlsby said the university had already purchased six residences and could end up owning 20 to 40 homes and apartments, all to help the coaches live near campus,” Thamil writes.
Bowlsby told Thamil he remembers having sticker shock when he moved to Stanford from the University of Iowa a year ago and that the only reason “he could afford to take the job” was because it came with a housing stipend. That’s why he came up with the idea.
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