Shannon Miller out at UMD?

[Eeyore]

Re: Shannon Miller out at UMD?

If there's a Title IX case to be made based upon the information presented so far (and I emphasize that Title IX cases depend upon the behavior of the institution as a whole and I have no idea what else is going on in the UMD athletic department), the only thing I can see is an argument that the female athletes are being deprived of quality coaching based upon the salary disparity. Frankly, I think that that's going to be a very hard case to make unless there's more to this. In fact, I think it smacks of hubris on Miller's part, arguing that no one that UMD could hire on the budget they are proposing could possibly be as good as she is. Pinning down the value provided by coaches is a lot more tenuous than that.

It's illustrative to compare this to the case brought by the Iowa field hockey players. In that case, they are claiming that they are being deprived of equal coaching because the university fired the coach based upon specific personality and coaching traits that it not only tolerates but encourages among the coaches of male teams and that these qualities are in and of themselves valuable to coaching. I haven't seen anything in Miller's case that is equivalent to this argument that directly links the reasons for firing to the quality of the coach. Absent that, I'm not seeing the case.

Don't read too much into what the Title IX lawyer is saying. It's a part of an attorney's job to say at this stage that his/her client has a rock solid case, even if it isn't true. It's more important to look at the specifics to see if the grounds for a case are there. To be honest, I suspect that we'll never know just how valid the case is because this whole thing seems destined for an out-of-court settlement that prevents it from being adjudicated.

 

[brookyone]

Re: Shannon Miller out at UMD?

The more this story is covered and expounded on the more and more I find contempt for this person and her situation. She seems to stop at nothing in her attempt to manipulate every avenue from the gender to the gay card. Not to mention how she exploits her players and assistant coaches. If I’m reading between the lines correctly…and I think I am…this is nothing more than about her loss and her feelings of rejection. They are not renewing her contract! Boohoo! How can you not understand and except the parameters around this highly coveted position…with its inherent level of scrutiny and accountability…and here’s a little secret there is no stipulation under Title 9 about equity in paid salaries. I got to believe there is a slight difference in the contracts of the two basketball coaches at any top ten program. The University has nothing to answer to. They employed her for 16 years…supported her hiring of other minority coaches… rewarded her substantially when warranted…etc. They could have gone in any direction when defending their move and would have been justified. Not getting the results expected of a coach of this compensation…her utter disrespect of University personnel, her peers, officials, or most people in general, etc. (after a game I happened to be in ear shot of her as someone walking past her uttered “tough loss coach”… and she quickly dismissed them with a “what would you know”… real classy. She just needs to move on and so should the misguided advocates trying way too hard to find something that is really not there.

There's your post of the year right there! Well done!

 

[pokechecker]

Re: Shannon Miller out at UMD?

OK, let’s accept for a moment Miller’s argument, that men’s and women’s hockey are exactly the same, that the coaches should be paid the same, the budgets should be the same, …. Everything should be exactly the same. There is big problem ….

Let’s look at the coaches as professors, and they are teaching the exact same class (hockey?), in the exact same classroom (Amsoil?) which can hold 60 students. But here is the problem, when it comes to registering for their classes (attendance), the male professor’s class fills up, or nearly so, while the female professor’s class only attracts 10 students. Add in the fact that at one time the female professor was a leading researcher (national championships), but that is no longer true. Also add in the fact the female professor was reprimanded for unethical behavior (NCAA violation). Further, add in the fact she doesn’t seem to get along with other staff (by her own admission).

How long can the university continue to employ the female professor when students (fans) do not register for her class? If the university decides hiring a new professor is better in the long run, one that doesn’t carry the baggage of ethical violations (NCAA violation), one that may attract more students (fans), gets along better with other staff, and may be a rising star researcher (better team performance), and command less salary, why would anyone fault the university for this decision?

The bottom line is that UMD has a professor (coach) that does not give them a return on their investment. In sports it is what have you done for me lately, and in Miller’s case, the answer is not much, her salary in comparison to other coaches of women’s hockey, or even the UMD men’s coach, is not in line with her performance. Like it or not a coach’s job is to bring in fans and that clearly has not happened in Miller’s case. If she cannot bring in fans with 5 national championships is it reasonable to expect her to do it with 3rd & 4th place finishes in the WCHA? You cannot expect a small school like UMD to continue to bleed money on the women’s hockey team, they are not a Big 10 school or an Ivy, they are a division II school in the same conference as Minot State , Wayne State, U of MN – Crookston, University of Sioux Falls, … small schools that just don’t have the budget to support having the highest paid coach of women’s division 1 hockey.

 

[pokechecker]

Re: Shannon Miller out at UMD?

There's your post of the year right there! Well done!

no, here is the post of the year

The more this story is covered and expounded on the more and more I find contempt for this person and her situation. She seems to stop at nothing in her attempt to manipulate every avenue from the gender to the gay card. Not to mention how she exploits her players and assistant coaches. If I’m reading between the lines correctly…and I think I am…this is nothing more than about her loss and her feelings of rejection. They are not renewing her contract! Boohoo! How can you not understand and except the parameters around this highly coveted position…with its inherent level of scrutiny and accountability…and here’s a little secret there is no stipulation under Title 9 about equity in paid salaries. I got to believe there is a slight difference in the contracts of the two basketball coaches at any top ten program. The University has nothing to answer to. They employed her for 16 years…supported her hiring of other minority coaches… rewarded her substantially when warranted…etc. They could have gone in any direction when defending their move and would have been justified. Not getting the results expected of a coach of this compensation…her utter disrespect of University personnel, her peers, officials, or most people in general, etc. (after a game I happened to be in ear shot of her as someone walking past her uttered “tough loss coach”… and she quickly dismissed them with a “what would you know”… real classy. She just needs to move on and so should the misguided advocates trying way too hard to find something that is really not there.

 

[pinch]

Re: Shannon Miller out at UMD?

I am curious as to what people think a head women's hockey coach of a team that loses $1+ million per year should be paid, while operating in a small athletic dept.
In much of the real world, you would be out of work... in college athletics ---- and women's athletics due to title IX, jobs and salaries which don't have any correlation to worth are created. i think 95% of all college coaches (men and women) are overpaid. If UMD men make some money, he should probably be paid more than other coaches.... a women's coach or a men's coach of a money loser (charity) should make a living wage -- say $50,000 tops. Don't like it, find something else to do, or figure out a way to make your university money.

 

[brookyone]

Re: Shannon Miller out at UMD?

The more this story is covered and expounded on the more and more I find contempt for this person and her situation. She seems to stop at nothing in her attempt to manipulate every avenue from the gender to the gay card. Not to mention how she exploits her players and assistant coaches. If I’m reading between the lines correctly…and I think I am…this is nothing more than about her loss and her feelings of rejection. They are not renewing her contract! Boohoo! How can you not understand and except the parameters around this highly coveted position…with its inherent level of scrutiny and accountability…and here’s a little secret there is no stipulation under Title 9 about equity in paid salaries. I got to believe there is a slight difference in the contracts of the two basketball coaches at any top ten program. The University has nothing to answer to. They employed her for 16 years…supported her hiring of other minority coaches… rewarded her substantially when warranted…etc. They could have gone in any direction when defending their move and would have been justified. Not getting the results expected of a coach of this compensation…her utter disrespect of University personnel, her peers, officials, or most people in general, etc. (after a game I happened to be in ear shot of her as someone walking past her uttered “tough loss coach”… and she quickly dismissed them with a “what would you know”… real classy. She just needs to move on and so should the misguided advocates trying way too hard to find something that is really not there.

There's your post of the year right there! Well done!

no, here is the post of the year

The more this story is covered and expounded on the more and more I find contempt for this person and her situation. She seems to stop at nothing in her attempt to manipulate every avenue from the gender to the gay card. Not to mention how she exploits her players and assistant coaches. If I’m reading between the lines correctly…and I think I am…this is nothing more than about her loss and her feelings of rejection. They are not renewing her contract! Boohoo! How can you not understand and except the parameters around this highly coveted position…with its inherent level of scrutiny and accountability…and here’s a little secret there is no stipulation under Title 9 about equity in paid salaries. I got to believe there is a slight difference in the contracts of the two basketball coaches at any top ten program. The University has nothing to answer to. They employed her for 16 years…supported her hiring of other minority coaches… rewarded her substantially when warranted…etc. They could have gone in any direction when defending their move and would have been justified. Not getting the results expected of a coach of this compensation…her utter disrespect of University personnel, her peers, officials, or most people in general, etc. (after a game I happened to be in ear shot of her as someone walking past her uttered “tough loss coach”… and she quickly dismissed them with a “what would you know”… real classy. She just needs to move on and so should the misguided advocates trying way too hard to find something that is really not there.

Beg pardon? It's Friday...but a little early to be baked isn't it?

 

[FiveHoleFrenzy]

Re: Shannon Miller out at UMD?

Beg pardon? It's Friday...but a little early to be baked isn't it?

What is more surprising is that he didn't nominate his own post as post of the year.

 

[Eeyore]

Re: Shannon Miller out at UMD?

I am curious as to what people think a head women's hockey coach of a team that loses $1+ million per year should be paid, while operating in a small athletic dept.
In much of the real world, you would be out of work... in college athletics ---- and women's athletics due to title IX, jobs and salaries which don't have any correlation to worth are created. i think 95% of all college coaches (men and women) are overpaid. If UMD men make some money, he should probably be paid more than other coaches.... a women's coach or a men's coach of a money loser (charity) should make a living wage -- say $50,000 tops. Don't like it, find something else to do, or figure out a way to make your university money.

I will once again point out that, from a legal standpoint, UMD, like any other NCAA institution, can't make an argument like this in court. The claim that the athletes aren't employees hinges in part upon a claim that raising revenue is not a significant factor in how they run their athletics programs. It may be an idiotic claim that we all know has no bearing on reality, but it is one that the NCAA and its member institutions have stated under oath and, equally idiotically, the courts have consistently accepted it. So the fact that the men's program creates a lot more revenue than the women's program cannot have any bearing on what the coaches are paid, at least not so far as the school can admit in a legal proceeding.

One funny aspect of this is that it implicitly stakes out a claim that athletics is more of a pure educational endeavor than the rest of the university is, since schools freely admit that what they pay professors is based in part upon how much revenue (i.e. grant funding) the individual brings in.

So how do they justify the discrepancy? For the most part, they just don't. A pay discrepancy between the coaches of a men's and a women's team generally isn't legally actionable so they don't have to defend it. So long as the coaches of women's teams are qualified it's not a Title IX violation and the fact that the discrepancy is so pervasive is actually a defense here since it means that a qualified coach for a women's team is cheaper to hire. And so long as male coaches of women's teams are paid equivalently to female coaches of women's teams and male coaches of men's teams are paid equivalently to female coaches of men's teams (hah!), it's hard to make a employer discrimination case.

That said, I think Miller can probably make a much better case under employer discrimination law rather than under Title IX. I have no idea whether it would actually work in court (and the fact that no one has tried it up until now makes me start out skeptical) but I've long wondered why the fact that the coaches of men's teams are paid more then the coaches of women's teams combined with the fact that no one ever even considers hiring a woman to coach a men's team doesn't constitute prima facie evidence of gender discrimination. If Miller takes this approach, I'll be really interested to see what happens.

 

[shelfit]

Re: Shannon Miller out at UMD?

Aren't college sports still officially categorized as extracurricular activities? If that's the case revenue generated, or lack thereof, is not part of the expectations by the school. College sports is about providing the opportunity to have that experience at the varsity level, which means not for recreational level athletes, and is funded by the school as such.

 

[spwood]

Re: Shannon Miller out at UMD?

they are a division II school in the same conference as Minot State , Wayne State, U of MN – Crookston, University of Sioux Falls, … small schools that just don’t have the budget to support having the highest paid coach of women’s division 1 hockey.

Why is everyone picking on Minot State? They were only a junior college when I lived there in the early 80s...

 

[Blackbeard]

Re: Shannon Miller out at UMD?

The bottom line is that UMD has a professor (coach) that does not give them a return on their investment. In sports it is what have you done for me lately, and in Miller’s case, the answer is not much, her salary in comparison to other coaches of women’s hockey, or even the UMD men’s coach, is not in line with her performance. Like it or not a coach’s job is to bring in fans and that clearly has not happened in Miller’s case.

A couple of things.

How do you define "a return on their investment? As you and I have previously discussed, and as the attendance stats that I have pointed out show, UMD's attendance has been fairly consistent over several years. So, the attendance is about the same now after not winning the Frozen Four for four years as it was the last time they won. So where, then, was the return on UMD's investment back then? Was it just a trophy in a showcase? If they weren't filling the stands then and are not doing so now the only difference is whether or not they are winning trophies.

So, they are losing money now (like every other D1 team) and they were losing money back then. Yet the implied message seems to be that they were getting a return on their investment when they were winning. Your argument, which I certainly agree with, is if you are losing money you are losing money.

So, back to the question...how are you defining "a return on their investment?"

Secondly, while not being a Miller apologist, I at the same time find it headshakingly funny/sad/pathetic, not to mention short sighted, that a coach who has won 5 National Championships in 10 years, thereby skyrocketing ahead of all of her coaching competition, is so casually dismissed as being a has been by so many posters here as though they know for a fact that she could never accomplish that again simply by virtue of the fact that she hasn't won one for four years. What does that line of thinking then say about all the other coaches? Like with so many other things in life your comment "what have you done for me lately?" certainly applies and highlights that short sightedness that many seem to blindly covet.

 

[pokechecker]

Re: Shannon Miller out at UMD?

I will once again point out that, from a legal standpoint, UMD, like any other NCAA institution, can't make an argument like this in court. The claim that the athletes aren't employees hinges in part upon a claim that raising revenue is not a significant factor in how they run their athletics programs. It may be an idiotic claim that we all know has no bearing on reality, but it is one that the NCAA and its member institutions have stated under oath and, equally idiotically, the courts have consistently accepted it. So the fact that the men's program creates a lot more revenue than the women's program cannot have any bearing on what the coaches are paid, at least not so far as the school can admit in a legal proceeding.

.

they can make any argument they want, just as Miller can file a suit claiming she's been damaged by not having her contract renewed for any reason she can dream up

whether it prevails or not is another matter

 

[pokechecker]

Re: Shannon Miller out at UMD?

A couple of things.

How do you define "a return on their investment? As you and I have previously discussed, and as the attendance stats that I have pointed out show, UMD's attendance has been fairly consistent over several years. So, the attendance is about the same now after not winning the Frozen Four for four years as it was the last time they won. So where, then, was the return on UMD's investment back then? Was it just a trophy in a showcase? If they weren't filling the stands then and are not doing so now the only difference is whether or not they are winning trophies.

So, they are losing money now (like every other D1 team) and they were losing money back then. Yet the implied message seems to be that they were getting a return on their investment when they were winning. Your argument, which I certainly agree with, is if you are losing money you are losing money.

So, back to the question...how are you defining "a return on their investment?"

Secondly, while not being a Miller apologist, I at the same time find it headshakingly funny/sad/pathetic, not to mention short sighted, that a coach who has won 5 National Championships in 10 years, thereby skyrocketing ahead of all of her coaching competition, is so casually dismissed as being a has been by so many posters here as though they know for a fact that she could never accomplish that again simply by virtue of the fact that she hasn't won one for four years. What does that line of thinking then say about all the other coaches? Like with so many other things in life your comment "what have you done for me lately?" certainly applies and highlights that short sightedness that many seem to blindly covet.

you've answered your own questions
and I've already answered it, give me the paint and I'll draw a picture if it helps

in sports what you did 5 years ago, and often last year, and even yesterday doesn't count for squat today

look at it this way, because Adrian Peterson had a 2,000+ yard rushing season 2 seasons ago, should the Vikings always retain his services?
as long as they believe he can do the job, they will pay him
once they lose confidence in his ability, he's gone
once someone who commands less salary but can do the job they want, he's gone

how is that any different for UMD and Miller

why is that so hard to understand?

 

[Blackbeard]

Re: Shannon Miller out at UMD?

you've answered your own questions
and I've already answered it, give me the paint and I'll draw a picture if it helps

in sports what you did 5 years ago, and often last year, and even yesterday doesn't count for squat today

look at it this way, because Adrian Peterson had a 2,000+ yard rushing season 2 seasons ago, should the Vikings always retain his services?
as long as they believe he can do the job, they will pay him
once they lose confidence in his ability, he's gone
once someone who commands less salary but can do the job they want, he's gone

how is that any different for UMD and Miller

why is that so hard to understand?

I was talking about apples and you're talking about oranges.

Despite your sarcasm there is nothing that is hard to understand about what you mentioned above that I`ve captioned in this post. But my original question was not how does one define a return on their investment, generally speaking, it was how do you, Pokechecker, define "a return on their investment?" You made the comment so I just wanted to know how you personally were defining it so I could understand your thinking.

Your comment implied that they were once receiving a return on their investment with Miller. If they are losing money now and they were losing money before there is no return on their investment now nor was there any return on their investment before! A loss is not a return on their investment, then or now. Neither is a reduced loss a return on an investment if they can save money on coaching salaries. Nothing is returned. Why is that so hard to understand?

Nothing complicated here, just a simple question. How were/are you, Pokechecker, defining "return on their investment?"

 

[pokechecker]

Re: Shannon Miller out at UMD?

I was talking about apples and you're talking about oranges.

Despite your sarcasm there is nothing that is hard to understand about what you mentioned above that I`ve captioned in this post. But my original question was not how does one define a return on their investment, generally speaking, it was how do you, Pokechecker, define "a return on their investment?" You made the comment so I just wanted to know how you personally were defining it so I could understand your thinking.

Your comment implied that they were once receiving a return on their investment with Miller. If they are losing money now and they were losing money before there is no return on their investment now nor was there any return on their investment before! A loss is not a return on their investment, then or now. Neither is a reduced loss a return on an investment if they can save money on coaching salaries. Nothing is returned. Why is that so hard to understand?

Nothing complicated here, just a simple question. How were/are you, Pokechecker, defining "return on their investment?"

I stopped answering questions like that when I completed my Bachelors degree.

OK, Ive already said this before. they were getting a better return on their investment when the team was winning championships and 1000 people showed up to watch them than now when they finish 4th and 1000 people show up to watch because they were getting publicity for their money. Although it is questionable exactly what those championships are worth. It sure didn't bring in more students.
I suppose it could be argued they are also getting PR now by shi* canning her, although probably not the type of PR they want.

Why does any college have an athletic department? UMD is no diferent than anybody else, except perhaps the attempt to have women's D1 hockey on a D2 budget.



If a court found that coaches of the women’s teams had to be paid as much as the men’s coach, and the teams had to be given the same budget, the likely result would be that there would not only be no further expansion of women’s hockey, there would likely be some schools that would be forced to drop women’s hockey. What many here simply can’t seem to comprehend is that a Big 10 school with it’s Big 10 budget fueled by the Big 10 network can afford to lose a million or two on women’s hockey. Schools like UMD do not have that luxury. Even ignoring the TV revenue, Big 10 schools draw huge crowds in comparison to the smaller schools. So saying UMD is no different than U of MN, Wisconsin, or Ohio State is just being naïve/ignorant of the facts.

Women’s hockey is only about 2% of the budget for WI & MN but it is 14% of UMD’s budget (using the articles numbers). Further, the athletic revenue difference between WI/MN and UMD is likely to only get bigger, for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that both MN & WI are located in a larger metro area, and both have a far greater number of alumni, and also a far greater number of non-alumni fans of their athletic teams.

Miller herself originally balked at coaching at UMD because she thought it was too small. That alone should tell you something about the economics. It is also another case of her being disingenuous, she knew up front UMD may not have the funds to sustain the program, so why the big surprise now?

 

[Royale with Cheese]

Re: Shannon Miller out at UMD?

I will once again point out that, from a legal standpoint, UMD, like any other NCAA institution, can't make an argument like this in court. The claim that the athletes aren't employees hinges in part upon a claim that raising revenue is not a significant factor in how they run their athletics programs. It may be an idiotic claim that we all know has no bearing on reality, but it is one that the NCAA and its member institutions have stated under oath and, equally idiotically, the courts have consistently accepted it. So the fact that the men's program creates a lot more revenue than the women's program cannot have any bearing on what the coaches are paid, at least not so far as the school can admit in a legal proceeding.

One funny aspect of this is that it implicitly stakes out a claim that athletics is more of a pure educational endeavor than the rest of the university is, since schools freely admit that what they pay professors is based in part upon how much revenue (i.e. grant funding) the individual brings in.

So how do they justify the discrepancy? For the most part, they just don't. A pay discrepancy between the coaches of a men's and a women's team generally isn't legally actionable so they don't have to defend it. So long as the coaches of women's teams are qualified it's not a Title IX violation and the fact that the discrepancy is so pervasive is actually a defense here since it means that a qualified coach for a women's team is cheaper to hire. And so long as male coaches of women's teams are paid equivalently to female coaches of women's teams and male coaches of men's teams are paid equivalently to female coaches of men's teams (hah!), it's hard to make a employer discrimination case.

That said, I think Miller can probably make a much better case under employer discrimination law rather than under Title IX. I have no idea whether it would actually work in court (and the fact that no one has tried it up until now makes me start out skeptical) but I've long wondered why the fact that the coaches of men's teams are paid more then the coaches of women's teams combined with the fact that no one ever even considers hiring a woman to coach a men's team doesn't constitute prima facie evidence of gender discrimination. If Miller takes this approach, I'll be really interested to see what happens.

It would seem to me that the risk here is that if successful in this approach schools would be driven away from having a direct female sports counterpart to a male revenue generating sport. A school that had men's hockey and women's water polo for instance could pay its men's hockey coach whatever it wanted and then the water polo coach whatever it wanted. However, a school with both men's and women's ice hockey would have to link the salaries of both coaches. If that is true why would they carry a women's basketball or hockey team at the D1 level at all. Maybe it is a legal long shot but still seems like a lot more at stake here then Miller's contract.

 

[Plante26]

Re: Shannon Miller out at UMD?

Not sure if has been pointed out, but how do you argue that your salary shouldn't matter in employment issues when she is on record as saying that she'd have willingly taken a pay cut?

 

[Blackbeard]

Re: Shannon Miller out at UMD?

I stopped answering questions like that when I completed my Bachelors degree.

OK, Ive already said this before. they were getting a better return on their investment when the team was winning championships and 1000 people showed up to watch them than now when they finish 4th and 1000 people show up to watch because they were getting publicity for their money. Although it is questionable exactly what those championships are worth. It sure didn't bring in more students.
I suppose it could be argued they are also getting PR now by shi* canning her, although probably not the type of PR they want.

Why does any college have an athletic department? UMD is no diferent than anybody else, except perhaps the attempt to have women's D1 hockey on a D2 budget.



If a court found that coaches of the women’s teams had to be paid as much as the men’s coach, and the teams had to be given the same budget, the likely result would be that there would not only be no further expansion of women’s hockey, there would likely be some schools that would be forced to drop women’s hockey. What many here simply can’t seem to comprehend is that a Big 10 school with it’s Big 10 budget fueled by the Big 10 network can afford to lose a million or two on women’s hockey. Schools like UMD do not have that luxury. Even ignoring the TV revenue, Big 10 schools draw huge crowds in comparison to the smaller schools. So saying UMD is no different than U of MN, Wisconsin, or Ohio State is just being naïve/ignorant of the facts.

Women’s hockey is only about 2% of the budget for WI & MN but it is 14% of UMD’s budget (using the articles numbers). Further, the athletic revenue difference between WI/MN and UMD is likely to only get bigger, for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that both MN & WI are located in a larger metro area, and both have a far greater number of alumni, and also a far greater number of non-alumni fans of their athletic teams.

Miller herself originally balked at coaching at UMD because she thought it was too small. That alone should tell you something about the economics. It is also another case of her being disingenuous, she knew up front UMD may not have the funds to sustain the program, so why the big surprise now?

OK, so you're saying that the return on their investment previously when the team was more successful was positive publicity. No one would argue with the publicity part but how does that get converted to juice in the bank account that can be directly attributed to that postive publicity? The answer, which you pretty much allude to, is I don't think that it can.

And it is certainly not hard to understand the second part of your post with respect to larger universities having far greater revenues and profits generated by some of their programs with which to be able to offset the loss generated by their women's hockey program but that wasn't part of the previous discussion. If each of those women's hockey programs at those larger universities are losing money then the return on their investment is the same as UMD's...which is not even zero, it's worse than zero. Therefore, there is no return, period. And that determination has nothing to do with whether or not the university in question has any profit generating programs with which to offset the financial black hole caused by their women's hockey program. Either their women's hockey programs sustain themselves financially or they do not.

So, it seems we are back to what I suggested some time ago, at least for UMD. And that is that it seems that UMD, since it claims to have no desire of turfing the program, is happy to lose less money (if it actually works out that way) than to lose more money. But as I asked once before, to what end? What is the point of all this? If you are losing money and can't objectively, difinitively attribute some number to increased enrollment, (and therefore to increased tuition fees etc. to the point that you break even or turn a profit), to the fact that you have a great women's hockey team that provides you with a lot of positive publicity then from a financial point of view it is completely pointless.

Maybe as shelfit suggested earlier today a profit may not be part of the expectations of the/any university with the experiences provided thereby to some of the students being of greater importance. If that's the case how great would it be if all of us could constantly lose money to the point of being on the verge of banruptcy by pursuing things that made us feel good just so we could have that experience?

Strikes me as being completely irresponsible. Even more so if it's public money.

One last question...are they checking Brookster at the door for water bottles tonight? I don't want any trouble.

 

[ARM]

Re: Shannon Miller out at UMD?

One last question...are they checking Brookster at the door for water bottles tonight? I don't want any trouble.

The only water bottle issues over the years have involved either the UMD bench or chancellor.

 

[brookyone]

Re: Shannon Miller out at UMD?

No worries tonight. No guaratees for Saturday though.