Success at a service academy is often measured differently than at other college football programs, with recruiting, transfer portal, and NIL opportunities limited compared to your average FBS establishment.
Nonetheless, Jeff Monken has delivered against expectation while leading the Army Black Knights, including in the ultimate measure of academy excellence, the Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy. Monken leads his men into the AAC after another CIC success, but what is his salary, contract, and net worth with the program ahead of the 2024 campaign?
Jeff Monken’s Salary and Contract in 2024
Monken will lead Army into the AAC this fall, having signed a contract extension with the program in September 2023. That extension aims to keep him as the head coach of the Black Knights through the 2027 college football campaign.
Ordinarily a closely guarded secret, multiple reports suggest that Monken’s salary averages to $2 million per year under that extension.
Monken signed the contract extension with just over a year remaining on his previous deal. The Army head coach last received an extension in January 2019, following a 2018 campaign that was the most successful in Army history.
No other head coach has delivered an 11-win season for the Black Knights, and that 2018 campaign was the second successive double-digit win season for the program. Army had previously registered just one 10+ win season in the entire history of the program.
Since arriving in West Point, Monken has led the Black Knights to a 70-55 overall record. Army has gone 4-1 in bowl games, including three consecutive wins from 2016-2018, under their long-tenured head coach.
More importantly, the Black Knights have won six of their past eight games against their bitter rival. Under Monken, they’ve also won the prestigious Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy four times, including in the 2023 college football campaign.
Despite a difficult start to the season where they slipped to a 2-6 record, Army took down a high-flying Air Force team and then sunk Navy in the traditional season-ending rivalry game to take home the CIC. Monken-led Black Knights’ teams account for 40% of all the Black Knights’ Commander-on-Chief’s successes.
While ESPN reports that Monken’s salary under the terms of his new contract will average over $2 million per year, public details of what the Army head coach makes haven’t been made available since the end of the 2016 college football season.
According to USA TODAY, the Army head coach made just under $1 million for that 2016 season, but Monken has been dismissive of any discussion relating to his salary when previously pressed on the situation.
“Oh, that’s not really anybody’s business but mine and West Point’s,” Monken remarked when he was asked about his contract situation in 2021, according to the Times Herald-Record.
CFB programs hiding the details of their employee salary isn’t a new thing. Private universities are under no obligation to reveal the salary of their employees, and there are several college football head coaches whose salary information has been kept out of the public domain.
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The difference here is, Army isn’t a private institution. It’s a federal institution that is financed from the pocket of taxpayers. However, under a technicality that Navy has used to hide the amount they pay their athletic staff, Army outsources their football operations to a private non-profit called the Army West Point Athletic Association.
The move was authorized by Congress in 2016, and since then, any request for information about Army football financial information — including Monken’s salary and contract — has been denied.
USA TODAY compiles a database of college football coaches’ salaries but was told, “as of now, we will not be releasing any of the information you requested,” according to a report in The Coloradoan.
Monken’s Net Worth
Because of the secrecy surrounding Monken’s contract, any figure attached to his net worth is pure speculation. If the reported figure of $2 million salary per year is correct, based on a contract that takes him through the 2027 college football campaign, the Army coach’s net worth would be comfortably over $8 million.
However, that doesn’t include any value accrued in the years since arriving at West Point. It also doesn’t include any performance-related bonuses that Monken might bolster his salary with.
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While there haven’t been any salary details released since 2016, the Army head coach had a competitive bonus package the last time the particulars of his deal were publicly accessible.
Although it’s nigh on impossible to establish Monken’s net worth without knowledge of his contractual specifics, it’s safe to say that his actual value to Army, as a result of the success that he’s delivered to West Point, far outstrips any financial value.
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