Which Public Employee Gets Paid the Most in Your State?

Quick, name the highest paid public employee in your state. No, it's not that lady behind the counter at the courthouse, nor is it the mighty gov'na. Mostly likely, it is a football coach. If not, then most likely a basketball coach.
The handy map above, from Deadspin shows the position holding the top paying spot in each state. There are only 10 states with non-sport related jobs taking #1, though they do all work at colleges.
Think about that, the top paid public employee in every freakin' state works at a college.

This fact should not be surprising, seeing as sport things are everywhere and are very popular and bring in a lot of money.
It is worth noting, however, that most of these coaches aren't being paid by taxpayers, the money cmes out of the huge lump of cash their sport brings in.

Still though, I mean, come on, it's just.... wow.

Regarding the asterisks on the map:

• *Penn State is technically "state-related" and not truly public, and as a result the school does not receive as much state funding as a typical public school (leading to higher tuition) and does not have to disclose as much information about its employees. You can read the details here.
• **It's difficult to track down salary information for employees at Ole Miss and Mississippi State, but the highest non-coach salaries we could find top out at around $500,000. While we can't prove that nobody at these schools earns more than Dan Mullen's $2.65 million per year, we think it's very unlikely.