Bruce McLeod resigned his position as University of Minnesota-Duluth athletic director Wednesday, citing personal reasons, according to USA Today.
Minnesota-Duluth officials named Dr. Patricia Merrier, Duluth’s faculty athletics representative, as interim athletic director for the remainder of the summer. An acting athletic director will be named this fall.
“My decision to resign was all mine,” said McLeod. “It came after a lot of thought and contemplation. The bottom line for the decision is that I do think it’s best for everybody. I know it’s best for Bruce McLeod.”
McLeod, the WCHA Commissioner, has taken a lot of heat over the summer, much of it from local media, specifically the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
In June, the Star Tribune exposed McLeod for allegedly trying to pay off a woman to drop sexual harassment charges against a professional hockey player living on the Duluth campus. Reportedly no payments were ever made.
Recently, the Minnesota state legislature was looking into holding hearings this fall into a misuse of funds within the Duluth athletics department. Legislators are concerned with Star Tribune reports that say hundreds of thousands of dollars set aside by the legislature for women’s athletics, were moved into paying for other parts of the athletic department, including administrative salaries. Much of this money was reportedly not going to women’s sports, and at the same time women’s sports were being told there was no money available to them.
McLeod had been employed by the University of Minnesota-Duluth for over 25 years, and was the athletic director for the past 13 seasons.
