U Board of Regents approves 2-year extension for AD Mark Coyle
University of Minnesota Athletic Director Mark Coyle received a 2-year contract extension this week and will lead Gophers' athletics through June of 2028.
MINNEAPOLIS - The University of Minnesota’s Board of Regents voted on Friday to approve a two-year contract extension for Athletic Director Mark Coyle.
Coyle is now under contract as the head of Gophers’ athletics through June of 2028. He was hired in May of 2106 and since then, Gophers’ teams have won 12 regular season conference titles, seven conference tournament titles and 13 individual NCAA titles. They’ve come from baseball, volleyball, hockey and soccer.
In the past year, Gophers’ student-athletes posted a school-record cumulative GPA of 3.44 and Minnesota registered school records with 431 Academic All-Big Ten honorees. Minnesota finished 28th – and third in the Big Ten – in last year's Learfield Directors' Cup race, which measures broad-based success across all programs. That puts Minnesota in the top 10 percent of all Division I athletics departments in the country.
Coyle has made some bold coaching hires in his five-plus years as athletic director. He chose former Gophers’ star Lindsay Whalen to take over the women’s basketball program, and Whalen has the best recruiting class in program history coming next year. He parted ways with Richard Pitino almost a year ago, and replaced him with Minneapolis native and former Gophers’ player Ben Johnson. Minnesota started the season 10-1, and is currently 11-10.
Coyle replaced men’s hockey coach Don Lucia with Bob Motzko, who was an assistant with Minnesota from 2001-05 before leading St. Cloud State to national prominence.
In perhaps his biggest splash hire, Coyle brought in PJ Fleck to take over the football program in January of 2017. In five seasons with the Gophers, Fleck has a 65-45 record, including a 21-22 mark in the Big Ten, and is 3-0 in bowl appearances. Fleck and the Gophers ended the 2021 season 9-4 after beating West Virginia 18-6 in the Guaranteed Rate Bowl.
Coyle has also had to weather financial losses within the athletic department to the COVID-19 pandemic. There have been staff cuts and salary reductions after losing millions in revenue from TV contracts and ticket sales with sports paused in 2020.