Post by ChrisR155 on Nov 25, 2003 1:38:10 GMT -5
With almost $1 million added, stakes are higher
By Jennifer Smith
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER
If people were cards, new Kentucky coach Mickie DeMoss could be the joker.
She has one-liners for just about everything.
When asked about her new office in what used to be the athletics director's space, she said:
"It's bigger than my condo in Knoxville. I can't even decide where I want to sit every morning."
When asked about Kentucky's marketing campaign featuring her face around the city, even inside the suite elevators in Commonwealth Stadium, she deadpanned:
"There I was. Staring at myself again."
She later asked UK officials: "Please. How long is all of this going to last?"
DeMoss might joke, but the upgrades to Kentucky's women's basketball program are serious matters to the new coach.
The Wildcats play their first game under DeMoss tonight, when Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne visits Memorial Coliseum for a 6 p.m. tip-off.
Last March, DeMoss told Athletics Director Mitch Barnhart that she had zero interest in the Kentucky coaching vacancy if there was not a serious financial commitment to women's basketball.
She had been an assistant coach at Tennessee, which had an operating budget of $3.1 million two years ago.
And she had been at Florida as a head coach in the early 1980s when the words women's basketball and operating budget weren't spoken in the same sentence.
................................
In the end, UK got DeMoss and since then has budgeted about $900,000 more than last year to start rebuilding a basketball program.
In the major categories -- salaries, travel, marketing and recruiting -- Kentucky more than doubled the budget from last year.
"We needed to make an effort to compete at a higher level," Barnhart said.
..................................
The most telling difference between last year's budget and this year's budget is salaries and benefits for the coaching staff.
Including university benefits, former coach Bernadette Mattox and her staff made a combined $325,500.
DeMoss and her staff, which added a director of basketball operations, bring in a combined $772,889.
Just the difference between the two ($447,389) is more than Mattox's staff made last season.
.............................
The budget allowed DeMoss to lure what she called "one of the best -- if not the best staff -- in the country" to Kentucky. She pulled assistants Matthew Mitchell (Florida), Pam Stackhouse (Purdue) and Niya Butts (Michigan State) from some of the top programs in the country.
That investment in assistants -- and an additional $78,000 in the recruiting budget -- paid off before UK even played a game.
DeMoss and her staff reeled in a recruiting class with three top-40 players and a No. 6 rating by the All-Star Girls Report.
www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/sports/womens/7315378.htm
By Jennifer Smith
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER
If people were cards, new Kentucky coach Mickie DeMoss could be the joker.
She has one-liners for just about everything.
When asked about her new office in what used to be the athletics director's space, she said:
"It's bigger than my condo in Knoxville. I can't even decide where I want to sit every morning."
When asked about Kentucky's marketing campaign featuring her face around the city, even inside the suite elevators in Commonwealth Stadium, she deadpanned:
"There I was. Staring at myself again."
She later asked UK officials: "Please. How long is all of this going to last?"
DeMoss might joke, but the upgrades to Kentucky's women's basketball program are serious matters to the new coach.
The Wildcats play their first game under DeMoss tonight, when Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne visits Memorial Coliseum for a 6 p.m. tip-off.
Last March, DeMoss told Athletics Director Mitch Barnhart that she had zero interest in the Kentucky coaching vacancy if there was not a serious financial commitment to women's basketball.
She had been an assistant coach at Tennessee, which had an operating budget of $3.1 million two years ago.
And she had been at Florida as a head coach in the early 1980s when the words women's basketball and operating budget weren't spoken in the same sentence.
................................
In the end, UK got DeMoss and since then has budgeted about $900,000 more than last year to start rebuilding a basketball program.
In the major categories -- salaries, travel, marketing and recruiting -- Kentucky more than doubled the budget from last year.
"We needed to make an effort to compete at a higher level," Barnhart said.
..................................
The most telling difference between last year's budget and this year's budget is salaries and benefits for the coaching staff.
Including university benefits, former coach Bernadette Mattox and her staff made a combined $325,500.
DeMoss and her staff, which added a director of basketball operations, bring in a combined $772,889.
Just the difference between the two ($447,389) is more than Mattox's staff made last season.
.............................
The budget allowed DeMoss to lure what she called "one of the best -- if not the best staff -- in the country" to Kentucky. She pulled assistants Matthew Mitchell (Florida), Pam Stackhouse (Purdue) and Niya Butts (Michigan State) from some of the top programs in the country.
That investment in assistants -- and an additional $78,000 in the recruiting budget -- paid off before UK even played a game.
DeMoss and her staff reeled in a recruiting class with three top-40 players and a No. 6 rating by the All-Star Girls Report.
www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/sports/womens/7315378.htm