Gators attain $40.5M extension with basketball coach Todd Golden

Florida coach Todd Golden, contemporary off main the Gators to the national championship, has agreed to a six-year, $40.5 million contract extension that retains him in Gainesville via the 2030-31 season.

Golden turns into one of many 5 highest-paid coaches in faculty basketball, at $6.75 million yearly.

He guided the Gators to a 36-4 file in his third season on the helm, profitable this system’s third nationwide championship. The 39-year-old turned the youngest coach to steer a workforce to the title since Jim Valvano in 1983.

“My household and I are grateful to be part of Gator Nation and for the chance to steer this nice program three years in the past,” Golden stated. “As we have proven throughout our time in Gainesville, the College of Florida is an establishment that has the sources, assist, and other people in place to compete and win nationwide championships. I’m so appreciative of each participant and employees member who’ve been essential to the success we have skilled right here. My household and I look ahead to our future right here at UF and to the continued success of our males’s basketball program.”

Golden took over for Mike White in 2022 after three seasons at San Francisco. He led Florida to the NCAA event in his second season, dropping to Colorado within the first spherical.

This season, the Gators gained the SEC event and earned a 1-seed within the NCAA event earlier than making a run to the nationwide championship recreation, the place they beat Houston, 65-63.

“Todd has accomplished an unimaginable job getting Florida males’s basketball again the place it belongs,” athletic director Scott Stricklin stated. “We believed in his imaginative and prescient, his aggressive nature and his trendy strategy to the sport again in 2022, and he has validated that perception in a comparatively quick time and helped create reminiscences of a lifetime for an additional technology of Gator followers.”

Golden was making $3 million beneath the phrases of his preliminary deal at Florida, then signed a two-year extension final March that paid him over $4 million per 12 months.

Earlier within the 2024-25 season, Golden was the topic of a four-month College of Florida Title IX investigation, following a grievance filed in opposition to Golden in September that included allegations of sexual harassment, sexual exploitation, stalking and cyberstalking from a number of girls, together with college students.

That investigation was closed in late January.

“We take these issues critically and perceive the necessity for the method to be carried out with strict confidentiality and discretion,” the College Athletic Affiliation, which oversees Florida athletics, stated in a press release after the varsity discovered “no proof” Golden violated Title IX. “All through this course of, Coach Golden has demonstrated super focus and professionalism, and we commend him for that. Because the Gators transfer ahead, we reaffirm our dedication to selling a championship expertise with integrity.”