http://www.gophersports.com/sports/w-soccer/spec-rel/052212aaa.html Says she wants to spend more time with her family. The timing is curious, to say the least. If I had to speculate to anything deeper than face value, a new AD is starting at Minnesota on July 1...perhaps they didn't see eye to eye? MDW did a great job at getting Minnesota out of the Big Ten cellar. That said, her recruiting had become far too regional for my liking, I'm not sure she even took a trip outside of Minnesota/Wisconsin/Iowa in the past 5 years.
Wow...crazy timing. I would think that the list of candidates would be pretty short. Here is my top 3. 1. Assistant coach Roh 2. SDSU head coach Wedemeyer 3. Creighton head coach Erickson (grew up in mn)
She certainly made the Gophers very competitive in the Big Ten...they were especially tough to beat in Minneapolis. Will be interesting to see if her successor can maintain that success.
Hard to say for sure, but I'd expect Wisconsin (among others) to try to take advantage of the turnover. The Badgers have two MN natives on the roster right now (not counting incoming freshmen), both from Woodbury. I know gopherbob mentioned that her recruiting was a bit too regional for his taste, but she did a nice job of locking down most of the top talent in the state. 16 of the 18 players on the current roster are from Minnesota.
To me this screams of let the top assistant take charge on an "interim" tag. Or depending on the AD, even a full-time tag.
There are a lot of Minnesotans on the roster, but outside of Taylor Uhl, the really elite MN natives over the past 3-4 years went elsewhere. Which is fine...it's great to leave state for college, but she wasn't plugging in elite players from elsewhere except for an Iowan or Wisconsinite every 2-3 years. Just seems kind of...lazy. It's a nit-pick though, she built a strong program with the players she got. The current AD is a hack, so hopefully he recognizes his "lame duck" status and lets the new guy make the hiring decision. I would probably throw an interim title at Coach Roh and let him have an audition season.
http://www.startribune.com/sports/gophers/155195255.html Good for her, still think she should have made this decision after the season though. Puts the program in a very weird position.
After the season? Am I missing something here? Isn't D1 Womens Soccer a Fall sport? They are not in season right now, correct? And no on is irreplaceable. They'll have an interim or a replacement in there and the program will likely not miss a beat.
I know you know this, but what GopherBob was saying is that the decision (c)should have been made right after the season, not 6 months later and 2 months before training begins for a new one. And he didn't say Mikki was irreplaceable. He said the timing puts the program in a weird position, which it does. Coaches are recruiting right now ... who's going to be responsible for Minnesota this season I'm sure is something recruits are concerned about. With it taking so long to name the interim, I'm sure one or both assistants are curious what positions they will be in come August. Will they still get great players, yeah, but that doesn't negate that they're in a weird position.
I believe that she always stated that her goal was home grown kids and she has landed almost all of them. She also might have just got tired of the "no thanks", "no thanks" from every non-upper midwest recruit that she might have made an effort towards. College soccer is a 2-3 month fall sport and fall in MN is colder than most winters elsewhere.... Where do you think all of these "elite" kids should have been coming from? Look at the soccer hotbeds - CA, southeast, southwest, etc... if you were 18 would you want to leave the sun to freeze and practice in a dome over the winter. The B10 is having a hard time staying on par with national football recruiting - I doubt women's soccer is much different.
I think you're making too much of this. No matter when a coach leaves, there are recruits and concerns and yadda yadda . . . if the school moves with some dispatch here (like they would in sports they care about), it won't be much of a problem. I mean, if Mickey really decided this was the right move, after everyone goes home for the summer isn't the worst timing (the best? is there EVER a good time?)
My point was that if she stepped down at the end of the season, it would have been easy to find a replacement. You know, the fire/hire season that follows every regular season in college sports. So instead she resigns a couple months before training camp starts, a month before the new AD takes over...all situations that have been known for several months. It's just weird.
Sometimes these things are scripted. Do you know that the administration wasn't aware she was stepping down?
Lots of times if a coach wants their assistant to get the job, they'll resign at a time that at least an interim tag is possible for the AC. Happened at Vanderbilt last July.
Yeah, and lots of times coaches announce their resignation right after the next class has inked, especially if they have a good class and the AD asks them to. Do you know which it is?
It should. An administration should never be held hostage by an outgoing coach. There are always options.