Overpaid or good job if you can get it?

[IFallsRon]

A decade of victories at Minnesota Duluth has made Shannon Miller a valued coach in Division I women’s hockey and she’s had offers to move. Yet she said Tuesday, after signing a contract extension, it would be hard to leave a successful program she built from scratch.

Miller, 45, had two years remaining on her contract and added two years, which will take her through 2012-13. The only head coach in UMD women’s hockey history made $160,000 in 2008-09, but terms weren’t immediately available on the extension.

[SkunkedAgain]

To me it's up to the school to decide. If having a successful women's hockey team provides the school with benefits, then it is worth it. The benefits could be monetary, coming from ticket revenue. The benefits could also be name recognition which sparks increased enrollment. There are a number of other benefits that UMD might derive from her services that substantiates paying that kind of money.

I believe that UMD needs to pay that level of compensation to keep her there...and good for her, she's a great coach.

[solbes]

Pretty well deserved. Wish the men's program would have had 1/4 the success in the last 10 years. Impressive career as a head coach. Cut and pasted from UMDBulldogs.com:

In her ten seasons, Miller has amassed an impressive overall record of 260-70-29 to accompany her NCAA-best nine Frozen Four wins. Besides an NCAA-most four national titles, Miller has led UMD to the NCAA Frozen Four six times, including the past three seasons. Her coaching portfolio also boasts of an NCAA-high of eleven tournament wins, in addition to reaching the 250th win plateau faster than an coach in NCAA history.

[PierBridge]

Well deserved~IMO

[CJH]

I am going to rock the boat, just a little bit. Hockey is an expensive sport and I would bet that they have lost money on the program overall. That's our tax money subsidizing it. Under that assumption, I say no.

If they are making money and contributing monetarily to the university or at least the athletic budget, then I am OK with it.

[Coach1310]

I have ZERO knowledge of the specifics here, but if you go with the rationale that all programs need to be self sufficient, then you can pretty much eliminate almost all college sports and activities. Football and Men's basketball fuel the entire athletic department at most universities(boosters from these programs are big helps as well). In some places, Hockey as well. Otherwise all the sports and activities need the tax payer subsidy.

The bottom line is how valuable is she to the school. If paying her $160,000 keeps her there and improves the entirety of school in some form or faction, I say it is a good deal. The bottom line, in this day in age, very few people are loyal and our young people are lacking the good role models they need.

[bobbymalone]

160K is not very much considering. At UMN-TC the football coach clears 1 million and the gopher football team licks.

[CJH]

Yeah, but that UMN-TC football program brings in around $15mil/year in the Dome and subsidizes all of the other sports, other than Men's basketball. That number will dramatically increase this year with the new stadium.

And 160k for a public employee is a lot. That's more than 40k more than what the governor makes, regardless of how you feel about the current one.

She's achieved success so she should be rewarded, just not sure that number is appropriate for a non revenue generating sport where the taxpayers foot the bill. If it was a private institution I would care less!!

[walleyehunter80]

she earned every penny!!