University of Minnesota Athletics
Merrily Dean Baker
9/10/2007 12:00:00 AM | Athletics
| Merrily Dean Baker Class of 2005 Women's Athletics Director 1982-88 |
Merrily Dean Baker was very instrumental in taking the University of Minnesota women’s athletic department to a new level of funding as well as a new level of respect in the collegiate world. She helped raise women’s athletic scholarships to $350,000 in 1984-85, and created “Friends Groups” for each woman’s sport at the U of M. In 1985-86, the State of Minnesota financed the operations of the women’s athletic programs largely due to Baker and her staff’s lobbying efforts. In 1988, her last year with the Golden Gophers, she was named one of the 100 most important women in America by the Ladies Home Journal. Dean Baker was a key member of the university’s effort to build the Aquatic Center in 1990.
Before coming to the U of M, she spent 12 years as Associate Director of Athletics at Princeton University, helping to build many of their women’s programs from scratch. She also served as Vice President and President of the AIAW before the NCAA allowed women. During her time at Minnesota she also simultaneously served as a member of the NCAA Executive Committee.
After her time at Minnesota, Dean Baker worked with the NCAA as the Assistant Executive Director before becoming the first female athletic director of a combined men’s and women’s department in the Big Ten when she became AD at Michigan State University. She was only one of three women to hold an athletic director post at a Division I-A institution. In recognition of her exemplary performance as an athletic administrator, Dean Baker was inducted into the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics in 2006.
M Club Hall of Fame
