Enrollment is at an all time low, though it sounds like recent projections put the incoming freshman class this fall as one of the largest in years.
The Athletic department only has like 20-odd employees across all sports, and from the way it sounds is operating under a 'below shoestring budget'.
I don't know how many scholarships the school gives out for hockey compared to other D1 schools, but while the coach isn't getting paid what a number of his colleagues are across the nation, I don't think that's the big problem. There's what, 61 D1 teams, plus 81 D3 schools. I'm fairly confident in saying that each school has at least 2 assistant coaches. So, 141 teams (minus LSSU), *2 = 282 assistant coaches. Certainly for some of the bigger programs, they are well paid & probably happy where they are at, others might not have the degree required, but I've got to think that some of those coaches would like to have a decent payday like what the school is paying Whitten. Hell, most of us probably don't make as much as he does, yet we put in the effort into doing our jobs. The coach just has a bit more to do.
What the problem, to me, comes down to is that we have to have both players and coaches who want to be here. Let's face it, the Sault is not an easy place to live at times. Winters are garbage, there's not much to do on this side of the river, and it's a long way from anywhere. Traveling to schools outside of the U.P sucks, so your weekends are even longer than they would normally be & you're being recruited to play for a team that has had, what, 2 winning seasons in 10 years?
When it comes to the kids, I think most of them want to be here, or are at least grateful for the opportunity to play, especially since a number of them probably would've aged out of juniors without another option, but it's the few that don't want to play here that make everyone look bad. Same goes for the coaches.
Sorry...that was a bit of a top-of-the-mind rant. May not have made much sense.
