With a completely new DePaul men’s basketball team and coaching staff, including the addition of former Ohio State head coach Chris Holtmann, fans are looking to the men’s team to be a beacon of light. People tend to forget about the women’s basketball team, who have had a better record than the men’s team since the 2006-07 school year, in large part due to Coach Doug Bruno’s leadership.

I attended both a women’s and a men’s game last year. Even though the men’s team last year was the worst they’ve been in a very long time (3-29), more people showed up to their game than the women’s game. The women weren’t that great either, but why watch a team that you most definitely knew would lose over a team that had a chance of winning?

Holtmann will be the ninth men’s basketball head coach in the past 36 years, seventh if you don’t count interim head coaches Tracy Webster (2010) and Matt Brady (2024). The women’s basketball team has had one head coach for the past 36 years — Bruno. 

Bruno has been the women’s basketball head coach since 1988 and was also head coach for a period from 1976-78. Bruno was the head coach for two years (1978-1980) for the Chicago Hustle, a team in the Women’s Professional Basketball League (WBL), which folded in 1981. He was also an assistant coach at Loyola Chicago for eight years (1980-88). 

Bruno is also a double Demon — he played for DePaul under Blue Demon legend Ray Meyer. 

Since returning to DePaul 36 years ago, Bruno has a record of 709-389 as head coach, not including his two years from 1976-78. ProPublica says that in the most recent fiscal year, 2023, he got paid about $550,000. The DePaul men’s basketball coach that year, Tony Stubblefield, was the highest paid employee — he got paid $1.5 million.

DePaul isn’t an outlier — overwhelmingly in college sports, men’s coaches are paid more than women’s. Marquette University pays its men’s coach around $2.2 million, while they pay their women’s coach a little less than $525,000. While its teams play at different arenas, the teams’ overall records for the past few years have been quite close to each other. So, it isn’t as if one team is significantly worse than the other. 

An example of a women’s basketball coach who gets paid more than the men’s basketball coach is Kim Mulkey, the head coach of Louisiana State’s women’s basketball team. She gets paid $3.2 million per year, and she gets paid $500,000 more than the men’s basketball coach, Matt McMahon. Mulkey has a record of 91-14, while McMahon has a record of 31-35. LSU makes it known that they’re a team with lots of strength and passion under Mulkey, and this proves that a women’s coach can get paid more than a men’s coach.

Bruno has won 229 more games than the last nine men’s basketball coaches, who have a combined record of 480-623. The men’s basketball team hasn’t had a winning record since Joey Meyer was the coach from 1984-1997. 

According to ProPublica, Oliver Purnell, who was the men’s basketball head coach from 2010-2015, was paid $2.3 million in 2014. He had a losing record of 54-105 and has the worst record of any DePaul men’s coach within the past 36 years, not including interim head coach Matt Brady. That year, Bruno was paid a little less than $450,000. 

The women’s basketball team has proven time and time again that they are the reason DePaul sports are good, not the men. While pay is sometimes determined by attendance, this should not be the norm. If students went to more women’s games, then there would be a big possibility for the women’s coach to get paid more. 

I know that people bring up the argument that the men’s team makes more money because more fans watch them, so that’s why the men’s coach gets paid a lot. 

College Factual says that in 2023 the DePaul men’s team brought in around $7.6 million, while the women’s team brought in around $3.8 million. This may be one of the big reasons why the men’s coach gets paid more, but to me, it still seems crazy that Bruno gets paid significantly less than the men’s coach.

I think that high-profile contracts like this should be performance-based. Some of the men’s basketball coaches may have proven that they were good before they came to DePaul, but why hasn’t DePaul paid Bruno a higher salary for his accomplishments and his loyalty to the Blue Demons? If Bruno’s presence in countless Halls of Fame like the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame and, most importantly, the DePaul Athletics Hall of Fame isn’t enough, then I don’t know what is. 

Fifteen DePaul players who have played under Bruno have been drafted to the WNBA, one of them being Allie Quigley. She won a championship with the Chicago Sky in 2021 and was the Sixth Woman of the Year in 2014 and 2015. She played for Bruno from 2004-08 and she’s about to receive a 2025 Hall of Fame Honor from DePaul. 

This issue of women’s teams not being equal to men’s teams in certain aspects is important to me as a woman in sports journalism because it can be frustrating when people don’t recognize women and their work. As many people know, the WNBA has had an increase in viewership and many people are starting to pay more attention to it.

While that’s great, CNN says that many WNBA players who are part of the Women’s National Basketball Players Association (WNBPA) are deciding to back out of the WNBA because the collective bargaining agreement isn’t up to their standards. They want a better contract that will give them things like higher salaries and expanded health benefits.

“This is a defining moment, not just for the WNBA, but for all of us who believe in progress,” WNBPA president and Seattle Storm player Nneka Ogwumike said in a recent statement.

Building off of Oguwumike, there’s still a lot of progress that needs to be made in women’s sports. 

I think DePaul fans in general should try to focus more on the women’s basketball team this year. I’m not saying to not watch any men’s games, but at least watch a women’s game. Women’s sports have been on the rise, and still are, so I want to see more people supporting the women’s team — and Bruno.

Related Stories:

• Doug Bruno completes 50 years of coaching and is ready for more
• Anaya Peoples and Jorie Allen: Leadership duo for DePaul basketball building a culture of love
• Has sports betting become too normalized?

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