Iowa AD Gary Barta Receives Contract Extension: Latest Details and Reaction

With the Iowa Hawkeyes enjoying success on the gridiron and hardwood, the school decided to reward athletic director Gary Barta last month.

According to a Wednesday report by Luke Meredith and Ryan J. Foley of the Associated Press (via Yahoo Sports), Barta's annual salary will climb from $400,000 to $550,000 in July, and he'll earn a total of $4.6 million in compensation over the life of the five-year extension.   

The Hawkeyes football team started 12-0 before losses in the Big Ten title game and Rose Bowl to Michigan State and Stanford, respectively, which more than rewarded Barta's faith in head coach Kirk Ferentz, whose future was in question as recently as before the 2015 season.

Barta also hired Fran McCaffery, who helped the men's basketball team climb to as high as No. 3 in the AP poll (currently fourth).

Andy Garman of KCCI in Des Moines, Iowa, still questioned the timing of this extension:

Last February, four field hockey players filed a Title IX complaint against the university. Kate Fagan of espnW.com explained the details of the case:

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The players claim that their former coach, Tracey Griesbaum, was fired for using the exact same coaching methods employed by male coaches at Iowa, and that by firing her, the school compromised their ability to win and robbed them of the opportunity to be challenged by a demanding coach. The women go on to assert that this alleged gender discrimination "creates harm to the female coach, of course, but it undermines the right of female student athletes to receive a similar experience to male student athletes simply because of their sex and/or the sex of their coach."

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Meredith and Foley reported the Office for Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Education is looking into allegations the school has failed to provide female athletes the same opportunities afforded male athletes. The OCR is set to visit the Iowa City campus in April.