Three weeks after being linked to UCLA, the Gophers have awarded head football coach P.J. Fleck with a contact amendment that includes annual retention bonuses worth $5.7 million over the six years remaining in Fleck’s term.

The Bruins reached out to Fleck in early February for their vacant head coach position, but the following day, Fleck publicly reaffirmed his commitment to the Gophers.

The U said Friday, pending Board of Regent approval, Fleck will now receive bonuses on top of his total salary, which remains at $6 million per year. Last year, he received a seven-year contract extension, and that length remains: through the 2029 season.

Fleck, who posted a 6-7 record in 2023, will now receive substantial retention bonus for each year of the contract. (Year 1 starts the day the deal is approved by regents and ends Dec. 31, 2024.)

Year 1 (2024): $700,000

Year 2 (2025): $800,000

Year 3 (2026): $900,000

Year 4 (2027): $1 million

Year 5 (2028): $1.1 million

Year 6 (2029): $1.2 million

Fleck’s salary, including retention bonuses, currently ranks ninth in the 18-team Big Ten Conference, according to U documents.

The contract also calls for a $500,000 increase in a salary pool for assistant coaches/staff. Recent Gophers coordinators Joe Rossi and Kirk Ciarrocca left Minnesota in the last two years and received significant salary raises at their next schools — Michigan State and Rutgers, respectively.

The contract amendment also changes the buyout, if Fleck were to leave for another coaching position at any level, or for a job in broadcasting.

Year 1 (2024): $7 million

Year 2 (2025): $5 million

Year 3 (2026): $4 million

Year 4 (2027): $3 million

Year 5 (2028): $2 million

During Year 6 (2029): $0

Fleck’s buyout for 2024 was $5 million.

The contact also includes bowl bonuses: $500,000 for College Football Playoff national championship game; $350,000 for CFP semifinal; $300,000 for CFP quarterfinal; $250,000 for CFP first-round; $150,000 for Citrus or Tampa Bay Bowl; $100,000 other bowls not mentioned above. The amounts shall not be cumulative.

If the U terminates Fleck’s contract without cause, the U would owe him 65% of base salary, supplemental compensation and retention bonuses that would have been paid over the remainder of the contract’s term.

Gophers Athletics Director Mark Coyle said the UCLA interest was “real” during his appearance on the Golden Gophers Podcast this week.

“When that started to percolate and gain momentum … he and I talked on Friday night,” Coyle shared on the podcast. “We had a long conversations on Friday night. He and I had long conversations on Saturday morning.”

On that Saturday, Feb. 10, Coyle said he also talked with interim U president Jeff Ettinger and the Board of Regents about what Fleck has done at the U.

Fleck is 50-34 overall, including 29-32 in the Big Ten, across seven seasons. He has reached nine or more wins in three seasons, including 11-2 in 2019. Gopher players have been setting record grade-point averages and have built a high standing in the community.

“His name is going to come up every year because what he does is unique.” Coyle told host Justin Gaard. “I can tell you in the athletic director circle, people talk about him. … People get confused about Row the Boat. They get confused about him jumping up and down on the sideline. They get confused of him running around, all that type of stuff. At the end of the day he is old-fashioned values packaged hi-def.”

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WASHINGTON — The U.S. will begin airdropping humanitarian assistance into Gaza, President Joe Biden said Friday, a day after more than 100 Palestinians were killed during a chaotic encounter with Israeli troops.

The president announced the move after at least 115 Palestinians were killed and more than 750 others were injured, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, on Thursday when witnesses said Israeli troops opened fire as huge crowds raced to pull goods off an aid convoy.

Biden said the airdrops would begin soon and that the United States was looking into additional ways to facilitate getting badly needed aid into the war-battered territory to ease the suffering of Palestinians.

“In the coming days we’re going to join with our friends in Jordan and others who are providing airdrops of additional food and supplies” and will “seek to open up other avenues in, including possibly a marine corridor,” Biden said.

The president twice referred to airdrops to help Ukraine, but White House officials clarified that he was referring to Gaza.

Israel said many of the dead were trampled in a stampede linked to the chaos and that its troops fired at some in the crowd who they believed moved toward them in a threatening way. The Israeli government has said it is investigating the matter.

Biden made the announcement while hosting Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni at the White house.

“Aid flowing to Gaza is nowhere nearly enough,” Biden said. “Now, it’s nowhere nearly enough. Innocent lives are on the line and children’s lives are on the line. We won’t stand by until we get more aid in there. We should be getting hundreds of trucks in, not just several.”

The White House, State Department and Pentagon had been weighing the merits of U.S. military airdrops of assistance for several months, but had held off due to concerns that the method is inefficient, has no way of ensuring the aid gets to civilians in need and cannot make up for overland aid deliveries.

Administration officials said their preference was to further increase overland aid deliveries through the Rafah and Kerem Shalom border points and to try to get Israel to open the Erez Crossing into northern Gaza.

The incident on Thursday appeared to tip the balance and push Biden to approve airdrops. White House national security spokesman John Kirby said that airdrops are difficult operations, but the acute need for aid in Gaza informed the president’s decision.

He stressed that ground routes will be continued to be used to get aid into Gaza, and that the airdrops are a supplemental effort.

“It’s not the kind of thing you want to do in a heartbeat. you want to think it through carefully,” Kirby said. He added, “There’s few military operations that are more complicated than humanitarian assistance airdrops”

Biden in his visit with Meloni at the White House on Friday also sought to assure European leaders that the U.S. remains behind Ukraine even as he’s been unable to win passage of a supplemental foreign aid package that includes $60 billion for Ukraine in addition to $35 billion for Israel and Taiwan. The legislation has passed the Senate, but Republican Speaker Mike Johnson has refused to put it up for a vote in the House.

Ahead of Meloni’s visit, White House officials said they don’t have good answers for allies about finding an end to the impasse with House Republicans and reopening the American spigot of aid to Kyiv that’s badly needed as Ukraine tries to fend off Russia’s invasion.

Biden, along with top Democrats and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, strongly urged Johnson during a White House meeting this week to take up the foreign aid package, but Johnson responded by saying that Congress “must take care of America’s needs first.”

The leaders’ agenda also discussed the U.S., Egypt and Qatar to broker an extended cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, Italy’s priorities for a G7 presidency, migrant flows into Italy from North Africa, and their countries’ China policies. Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.

Biden said earlier this week that he was optimistic that a cease-fire deal could be reached by early next week. But he acknowledged that a prospective deal may have been set back after Israeli troops on Thursday fired on a large crowd of Palestinians racing to pull food off the aid convoy.

With Meloni by his side, Biden on Friday expressed cautious optimism that a deal can still be struck.

“We’ve been working and hopefully we’ll know shortly,” Biden said.

Meloni said solving the humanitarian crisis in Gaza was Italy’s top priority.

“We need to coordinate our actions to avoid an escalation, and this regard we fully support the U.S. mediation efforts,” she said.

Associated Press writers Colleen Barry in Milan and Seung Min Kim contributed reporting.

A new Chicago White Sox ballpark in the South Loop is only a figment of someone’s imagination right now.

But at least the news Wednesday that the Sox are in “serious talks” to build a downtown stadium in the area known as “the 78″ near Clark Street and Roosevelt Road gave us something to talk about besides the Justin Fields-versus-Caleb Williams debate during a down time for our local sports teams.

With no SoxFest on tap and no big-name signings to get fans excited about the season, the leak of the ballpark rumor provided the Sox with front-page news on another cold, dreary day in January.

Nothing wrong with that.

Who doesn’t want to dream of a beautiful new ballpark with a skyline view and surrounding bars and restaurants to go to before and after games? It’s what the Sox should’ve done in the mid-1980s when they held the state hostage for public funding for what was then called new Comiskey Park.

Instead we got an unlovable structure ridiculed by fans for its steep upper deck, a moat separating the field from the bleachers and a lack of entertainment options anywhere near the park. The “Ball Mall” was the popular nickname after it opened in 1991.

“When people came out for that first opening day, they were in awe of the place,” Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf told the Tribune’s Teddy Greenstein in 1999. “But now the stadium is a popular thing to attack. Look, I thought people wanted unobstructed views and wide aisles. I guessed wrong.

“People wanted a more homey feeling. But I really believe that if we had built Camden Yards instead, I would have been massacred. People wanted a modern park.”

Oops.

In a rare mea culpa, Reinsdorf eventually agreed to a series of renovations that included removing eight rows and 6,600 seats from the upper deck and a canopy-style roof to replace the flat one over the 13 highest rows. A sports bar/restaurant was constructed across the street. The moat was filled in with new bleacher seating. The Sox even allowed tailgating.

Once renovated, “The Cell” grew on fans, at least those who didn’t have to sit in the upper deck. It wasn’t as beloved as old Comiskey Park but it was fine. Still, the only time outside opening day that the ballpark was typically filled was when the Sox were in the midst of a winning season or playing the Cubs in the City Series.

Now comes another mea culpa from Reinsdorf — an admission that what’s now called Guaranteed Rate Field is obsolete after only 33 years. Reinsdorf wouldn’t say that, of course, but by making a new ballpark a priority, it’s obvious he “guessed wrong” about the one at 35th Street and Shields Avenue.

After the Sun-Times broke the news about new stadium talks between the Sox and the city, Mayor Brandon Johnson and the Sox released a statement Thursday.

“Mayor Brandon Johnson and Chicago White Sox Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf met to discuss the historic partnership between the team and Chicago and the team’s ideas for remaining competitive in Chicago in perpetuity,” the statement read. “The partnership between the City and the team goes back more than a century and the Johnson administration is committed to continuing this dialogue moving forward.”

The idea the Sox will remain competitive in Chicago “in perpetuity” suggests they are competitive now. Anyone following the team’s downward spiral since the 2022 postseason, including its uninspiring offseason this winter, knows that’s a joke.

But for the sake of argument, let’s assume the Sox intend to compete in the near future. Would a ballpark in the South Loop help bring in fans who generally have avoided going to Sox Park over the last couple of decades?

If they build it, will they come?

Only if a new ballpark comes with a new owner.

It goes without saying that Reinsdorf’s popularity among Sox fans is lower than the sewer system under Lower Wacker Drive. But Reinsdorf, who turns 88 in February, said in September that he had no intention of selling the Sox.

“Friends of mine have said, ‘Why don’t you sell? Why don’t you get out?’” he said. “My answer always has been, ‘I like what I’m doing, as bad as it is, and what else would I do?’

“I’m a boring guy. I don’t play golf. I don’t play bridge. And I want to make it better before I go.”

Evidence of Reinsdorf making the Sox better is harder to find than the owner of the gun who fired bullets that hit two fans last summer in the Guaranteed Rate Field bleachers. The payroll is going down, and the organization’s strange infatuation with bringing in former Kansas City Royals personnel has reached a crescendo.

A new South Loop ballpark sounds cool, but it would not be a panacea for the Sox’s attendance problems, just as the new Comiskey Park wasn’t after that new ballpark smell wore off following the first few seasons. Traffic jams on the Kennedy and Dan Ryan expressways won’t make it any easier to get to, and taking the “L” at night is much scarier now than it was prepandemic.

Even in the highly unlikely event the Sox would pay most of the tab, what would happen to the soon-to-be white elephant in Bridgeport that Illinois taxpayers helped pay for? Will the Sox ever explain why they need to leave after all those renovations?

At least the Sox should acknowledge the current ballpark, the last one built before the “retro” parks such as Camden Yards, was an architectural mistake.

“I talk to fans a lot, and they tell me they don’t like the ambience,” Reinsdorf told Greenstein in 1999 during another Sox rebuild. “But what people really want is something better in the uniforms.”

That statement rings true 25 years later.

Maybe the Sox need to work on that before talking about a new ballpark.

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