Not unlike Coach Brad Underwood of the University of Illinois' net worth, Kelvin Sampson's impressive upward salary trend is the result of very hard work.
During his first few seasons as coach of the Houston Cougars, when the team wasn't doing so hot, Sampson used to go around campus trying to recruit students to attend games. According to PaperCity magazine, "His daughter Lauren Sampson, the UH program's boundlessly enthusiastic director of external operations, would take her dad into the dorms. To the doorsteps of fraternity and sorority houses. Right into classrooms. And one of the best coaches in college basketball would ask kids much younger than this own to pretty please maybe consider showing up at a game or two."
Fast forward to 2021, when the Cougars are the No. 2 seed in the Midwest region of the NCAA's March Madness tournament. "I feel like coming in people may kind of overlook Houston," player Quentin Grimes told PaperCity magazine. "I feel like they kind of push us to the side a little bit. But we know how good we are." As for Coach Sampson, he had this to say about his hard-working team: "We got what he earned ... It's not like we bought it. Or that we got the most money so we can go buy it. We earned it. Nobody gave it to us. We earned it."
