Re: Shannon Miller out at UMD?
Since they did not immediately walk her out the door, this feels very much like an economic decision. .
it is, but not in the way you think
her pay is a drop in the bucket compared to the UMD budget, that's BS
should she be paid as much as a coach of a male team? let's review that:
based on performance, she shouldn't be paid as much, she should be paid more, 5 national championships in 10 years, nobody else comes close (but in sports, it is what have you done for me lately?)
but the other part of her job is to put fans in the seats to help pay for the program, tickets to the women's game cost 1/5 & 1/10th that of the men's game and they draw 1/5 the crowd= failure
add in that she made political comments that offend half the fan base, ironically it would have played well in Minneapolis or Madison, but in Duluth, especially the surrounding area, not so much
and failure to recruit MN athletes, why would the fan base support her team? winning only goes so far
the last game I attended at Amsoil I was sitting behind a group of HS team, 2 or 3 of the players mildly cheered for UMD, the other 9 or so cheered enthusiatically for the Gophers, when you can't win over local HS girls who you would think dream of playing for the team, you are screwed, they knew they had no chance of ever playing for the team, so why get excited over them?