Sean Lewis Contract Extension

In August of 2021 the Kent State football program extended football head coach Sean Lewis. Sean Lewis has been the head coach for Kent State since 2018. In his time at Kent Coach Lewis has a coaching record of 19-25, including one bowl game win as well as MAC East division championship for the Golden Flashes. The contract extension will go into effect this 2022 season and will run through the 2025 season, meaning that from the two contracts  Lewis will be at Kent State coaching for eight seasons.

The contract extension will go into effect this 2022 season and will run through the 2025 season, meaning that from the two contracts Lewis will be at Kent State coaching for eight seasons.

Lewis initially played college football at Wisconsin, where he spent two seasons as a player being the kick returner and tight end

Lewis was brought to Kent State in late 2017 after coming off being the quarterback coach at Syracuse university. And before that was an offensive coach at Bowling Green as well as being a graduate assistant at Akron. Lewis has been a part of six programs before coming to Kent State. Including starting off as an offensive coordinator for a high school in Chicago, a job of which he had right after college.

The initial Lewis contract was signed in December of 2017, but did not officially start until February of 2018. The yearly salary for Lewis in the initial contract was $440,000 for the first two seasons of the deal.

Early performance for the program under Lewis was not not great, in his first season the team had just a 2-10 record. Since that initial season the team finished with a 7-6 record in 2019, a 3-1 record in 2020. This was the first time Kent State finished with back-to-back winning seasons since the 1976 and 1977 seasons. Then in 2021 a record of 7-7.

“Everything that our football team and other athletic programs spend goes to enhancing the division-I experience for our student athletes,” said Dan Griffin who is director of athletic communications at Kent State.Griffin went to say that Kent State focuses on delivering an all-encompassing, holistic experience for division-I sports. “Over 30 staff members in the department are either Kent State graduates or have returned to Kent State after previously working here,” Griffin Said.Dan Griffin, head of athletic communications

When asked about if sports contracts are too much to give to one person Griffin said that sports contracts are tied to revenue. Meaning that it does not matter if it is the athlete or the coach who is getting paid it is all tied into revenue. And what drives the contracts to be where they are is solely based on television deals. “As those deals continue to grow, contracts will grow as well”

In the press release that was given out last year by the Kent State Athletic department Coach Lewis stated how special of a place that Kent State is and that as a program they are just getting started. Lewis went on to say that he is thrilled to have the commitment from Kent State. In that press release that was given out last summer there was one thing missing from the press release, the contract itself, which has still yet to be released to the public.

Dr J.D Ponder a professor of communications at Kent State University said that it is a long time to go without a contract being public. “That would be something I want to know and be able to be discussed,” in sports a lot of the contracts are public. So, for it to be over a year and not have it be public is rather strange.

Ponder went on to say for sports are not comparable to the normal person contract and to the average person. He said that sports contracts are entertainment contracts. So to the argument if contracts are too high the answer is no.