University of Minnesota Athletics
Merrily Dean Baker - M Club Hall of Fame
Merrily Dean Baker
Women’s Athletic Director, 1982-89
HOF Class of 2005
Merrily Dean Baker took the University of Minnesota women’s athletic department to new levels of funding and collegiate respect.
She helped raise women’s athletic scholarships to $350,000 by 1985, and created “Friends” groups for each women’s sport at the U of M. The next year, the State of Minnesota financed operations of the women’s athletic programs.
In 1988, her last year with the Gophers, she was named one of America’s 100 most important women by the Ladies Home Journal. She was a key part of the effort to build the Aquatic Center in 1990. While at Minnesota she simultaneously served as a member of the NCAA Executive Committee.
Before coming to the U of M, Dean Baker spent 12 years as Associate Director of Athletics at Princeton University, helping build many of their women’s programs from scratch. She also served as Vice President and President of the AIAW, before the NCAA adopted women’s programs.
After her Minnesota tenure, Dean Baker was NCAA Assistant Executive Director before becoming the first female athletic director of a combined Big Ten men’s and women’s department, at Michigan State University. She was inducted into the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics in 2006.