Greene on Butch: 'Definitely someone I’d play for'
AUBURN | As a former college and minor league baseball player, Auburn athletics director Allen Greene knows baseball and knows baseball coaches.
And it didn’t take him long to realize the Tigers had a special one in Butch Thompson.
“So much about coaching is your relationship with the student athletes and what I saw right away is how much admiration he has for those young men in his dugout and how much admiration they have for him. That can’t be faked,” said Greene, who took command of Auburn’s athletic department in February.
“Butch connects with his student athletes and he’s definitely someone I would want to play for. I also look at our coaches now as I get older from a parent’s standpoint and would I want my son or daughter to play for our coaches, and from A to Z, I definitely would.”
The final details on Thompson’s new six-year contract have not been released but it has a base salary of approximately $900,000 annually with bonuses that could take it up to $1 million, which will make him one of the highest-paid coaches in the SEC. Vanderbilt’s Tim Corbin makes in the neighborhood of $2.3 million annually while Florida’s Kevin O’Sullivan and LSU’s Paul Mainieri are paid a little over $1 million per year.
“I will tell you that he is very competitively compensated with some of the best coaches in the country. And deservedly so,” said Greene, who played under Mainieri at Notre Dame from 1996-98.
In his third season at Auburn, Thompson guided the team to back-to-back NCAA Tournament appearances for the first time since 2003, advanced to a Super Regional for the first time since 1999 and won the first Super Regional game in school history.
Thompson has had 17 players drafted, including pitcher Casey Mize, the No. 1 overall pick in 2018, and 37 players named to the SEC Academic Honor Roll. Over 30 have received their degrees in the past three years.
“I’m just glad I get to continue to lead the program,” Thompson said. “With every player we’ve recruited and the team this year and the fans and our alumni and the leadership from the top, Auburn is everything. I think we’re on the cusp of just building a sustained, long-term program. I’m just so excited that I can see that vision play out for a longer period of time.
“For our leadership to want me to continue to be the head coach at Auburn for a long time is exciting for me and my family because we love living in this community. I’ve got two daughters and a wife and a younger daughter that just love being part of the Auburn community.”