Florida A&M University BOT holds up basketball coach’s contract

It’s been just over two months since Florida A&M University (FAMU) named Patrick Crarey men’s basketball coach. But as the end of the fiscal year approaches, he still doesn’t have a contract. But he does have a controversy on his hand.

The Florida A&M University Board of Trustees declined to approve a multi-year contract for Crarey, tabling the motion until its August retreat.

FAMU President Dr. Larry Robinson has the ability to give Crarey a single-year agreement on his own. He is currently under Volunteer Employment Agreement he entered on April 18.

Florida A&M University BOT questions salary

Crarey was hired at FAMU after successfully leading St. Thomas University to a 61-27 record, two consecutive NAIA Tournaments, and three straight winning seasons at the school. He was hired by Vice President of Intercollegiate Athletics ,Tiffani-Dawn Sykes and was reportedly offered a three-year, $150k deal, pending BOT approval.

The salary was a point of contention in Monday’s discussion. Not just the salary FAMU was asked to sign off on, but how much Crarey made at Saint Thomas University.

FAMU Trustee Deveron Gibbons suggested pushing back Crarey’s approval or to not hire him at all. He said there was not enough information as to whether or not signing him to the proposed contract would triple his salary. Sykes pulled up the employment verification on Crarey, and stated he made $95k at the NAIA program at the time of his departure.

The fact that Crarey has coached primarily at the NAIA level has been mentioned several times during his hiring. Crarey, for what it’s worth, coached his team to wins over Howard and Delaware State in previous seasons.

Walk-ons a point of contention

The hold up for Crarey’s contract comes as a report from RattlerNation, a FAMU blog, posted a letter accusing Crarey of ‘kicking off 95 percent’ of the remaining players he inherited from previous head coach Robert McCullum. The letter was sent by Julius McAllister, senior minister of Bethel AME Church for nearly 16 years. His son, Colin, is a walk-on and one of the 16 student-athletes his father claims was dismissed.

“Without any provocation, Coach Crarey shared with met that he released 16 student-athletes (He kept one walk-on student athlete and two reserve scholarship players),” McAllister wrote in the published letter.

McAllister wrote that he dropped in “to see if Coach Crarey was in his office” on June 3. His recollection of the meeting included Crarey stating that FAMU had been a bad basketball program for more than 20 years and has not been operating as a Division one program and it is one of the worst programs in the SWAC. McAllister dismissed the accuracy of Crarey’s assessment, despite the fact that FAMU has not had a winning basketball record since it went 21-14 in 2006-2007, when it won the MEAC title and made an NCAA Tournament appearance. He also argued that FAMU was competitive in the MEAC under McCullum despite the fact the team never won more than 12 games or advanced to the semifinals of the MEAC Tournament.

The quality of FAMU’s basketball program aside, an email HBCU Gameday obtained from Crarey, sent on June 3, contradicts the claim made by McCallister in his letter. The email, sent to four student-athletes (including Colin McAllister), stated that walk-ons would not be a part of the men’s basketball summer workouts. The team, once composed of 13 scholarship players and six walk-ons, would be limited to 16 players, moving forward — 13 scholarship players and three walk-ons. It went on to state that no current walk-ons were on the 2024-2025 roster, but open tryouts would be held and the players were eligible to try to gain a spot on the roster.

HBCU Gameday has learned that six student-athletes, recruited by McCollum and his staff, entered the transfer portal prior to Crarey being named head men’s basketball coach — one of which has already graduated and three that are set to graduate this summer. Three players have hit the transfer portal since Crarey’s hire. Four scholarship players remain on the team. The remaining 12 spots must be filled by Crarey — nine of them scholarship and three of them walk-ons. But with FAMU’s BOT holding off on approving his contract, he’s currently working off a Volunteer Employment Agreement.

Meanwhile, Florida A&M University will look to improve on a 6-23 season — its 17th losing season in a row for men’s basketball.

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