The University of Richmond athletic department has granted football coach Mike London a contract extension through the 2014 season, an agreement athletics director Jim Miller said recognized London’s success with athletes on the field and in the classroom.
The extension tacks another two years onto London’s original five-year deal. In a statement released Tuesday, Miller said he had no doubt that London was the right coach to the lead the Spider football program. London’s salary was not disclosed, but the statement said the agreement could be extended based on London’s performance.
It was not immediately known whether the extension allowed the contract’s termination if London received job offers from an NFL team or a football bowl subdivision school — a condition offered to former coach Dave Clawson when he signed a five-year contract extension a week before leaving to be offensive coordinator at the University of Tennessee. Clawson is now the coach at Bowling Green State University in Ohio.
When London was introduced as coach on Jan. 19, 2008, he said he had always thought Richmond’s environment was the “perfect fit.” He said in the statement that it was his desire to move his family to Richmond, something the extension would allow him.
“I don’t see this job as a stepping stone because I’ve already been to the highest level,” he said in the days after being hired. “This is my kind of environment.”
E-mail messages left for London and Miller on Thursday night were not immediately returned.
London, a 1983 graduate in his first year as coach, led the 2008 football team to its first national championship in school history when it defeated the University of Montana 24-7 in Chattanooga, Tenn., on Dec. 19.
Richmond, a part of the NCAA Football Championships Subdivision, is in the middle of construction on a new 8,700-seat on-campus football stadium, which is expected to be completed for the 2010 football season.
