Western Michigan will cut athletic department budget by $6 million

Western Michigan athletic director Kathy Beauregard announced Monday the WMU athletic budget would take a $6 million hit, going down from $31 million during the 2019-2020 season to $25 million for the 2020-21 year due mainly to the COVID-19 pandemic, which put an end to the college sports world in mid-March.

Beauregard, who has held her role as WMU AD since 1997, said she will take a 25 percent pay cut, along with longtime hockey head coach Andy Murray and football head coach Tim Lester.

She said other pay cuts in her department have not been finalized.

Beauregard hired Murray, the former head coach of the Los Angeles King and St. Louis Blues, in the summer of 2011 and he guided the Broncos to the 2012 CCHA tournament championship with a 3-2 win over Michigan, their first CCHA title since 1986.

Lester was quarterback on WMU’s team that reached the MAC championship game in 1999, going on to earn a spot in WMU’s Hall of Fame in 2011. He replaced P.J. Fleck as head football coach in the winter of 2017.