EAST LANSING—Michigan State University has signed coach Tom Izzo to a new deal valued at $6.2 million per season, giving him about $2 million more each year.
The school announced the deal Thursday, saying that the five-year rollover contract will need to be approved by its board next month.
“Michigan State has been a home to me and my family for 40 years and I’m ecstatic to sign this contract,” said Izzo, who was hired at the school by the late Jud Heathcote as a part-time assistant in 1983.
Izzo, 67, who was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2016, won a national championship in 2000 and leads all active coaches with eight Final Four appearances. He led Michigan State to a Big Ten-record 24th straight NCAA Tournament last season. He has won the Big Ten title 10 times in the regular season and six conference tournament championships.
“We have worked hard to maintain championship standards and I’m as energized to coach now as I was when I started as the head coach in 1995,” Izzo said.
Izzo was promoted from assistant to head coach to replacing the retiring Heathcote.
After a slow start, the hard-driving coach turned the program into a national powerhouse by focusing on rebounding, defending and playing top-flight competition each season before Big Ten play.
Izzo, who is from Iron Mountain, Michigan, in the state’s Upper Peninsula, has won more games (666) than any coach at a Big Ten school. He has lost 267 times, averaging fewer than 10 losses per season.
“We greatly appreciate Coach Izzo’s commitment to our outstanding university and his competitive drive to keep Spartan Basketball as a national powerhouse,” school president Samuel Stanley Jr. said.
Izzo has had multiple chances to leave Michigan State for the NBA and to coach at other colleges and turned down each opportunity, including one from the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2010.
“Twelve years ago, Tom Izzo said he would be a Spartan for life, and today’s announcement further demonstrates and renews this commitment,” athletic director Alan Haller said.
Politics
VIDEO: How Michigan public schools survived the pandemic
https://www.tiktok.com/@gandernewsroom/video/7357799499571531050
What to know about Trump’s legal issues
Over the past year, former president Donald Trump has become the center of not one, not two, not three, but four criminal investigations, at both...
Michigan lawmakers look to break (another) state funding record for public schools
Democratic lawmakers are hashing out plans to bring state funding for Michigan’s public schools to another new, all-time high—and ensure teachers...
Local News
Lawyers for Nassar assault survivors have reached $100M deal with Justice Department, AP source says
The US Justice Department has agreed to pay approximately $100 million to settle claims with about 100 people who say they were sexually assaulted...
More Michigan teens could soon take driver’s ed in their own schools
Privatization of driver’s education means that only 38 Michigan high schools offer affordable in-school driving classes for students. New grants...