By Wendi Wheeler ’06<\/p>\n
![\"Roger](\"http:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2012\/10\/Auggies_Office_Griffith.jpg\" "\\"Auggies_Office_Griffith\\"")
Last season, he didn\u2019t make any three-point shots, pull down any rebounds, or have any assists on the court. But Roger Griffith \u201984, executive vice president of the Minnesota Lynx, did have a great season\u2014in part because the Lynx brought home their first championship title, and in part because of the team\u2019s dedicated fans.<\/p>\n
Griffith came to the Timberwolves franchise in 1994 as a finance officer. When the Lynx, Minnesota\u2019s Women\u2019s National Basketball Association (WNBA) team, came to the state in 1999, Griffith took on the role of executive vice president. In that role, he is responsible for making decisions about the head coach and working with the coaching staff on player and personnel relations. He also maintains the team roster and oversees scouting and drafting functions as well as the signing of free agents. Basically, he said, his work supports the coaches so that they can focus on coaching.<\/p>\n
And that is how he contributed to the Lynx\u2019 winning 2011 season. In October, the team completed its season, beating the Atlanta Dream in a three-game sweep of the WNBA championship series. It was the team\u2019s first championship and first appearance in the playoffs since 2004.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe championship game was very nerve-wracking,\u201d Griffith said. The team was behind at half-time, but Griffith said they weren\u2019t worried. \u201cWe had always been a good second-half team, and we knew we had the skills and talent to pull ahead.\u201d They did, but nearly lost their lead in the final minutes of the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was stressful,\u201d Griffith said, \u201cbut it was also fun and exciting to see the large number of fans who traveled to Atlanta to support the team.\u201d<\/p>\n
Griffith said the Lynx fans are one of the best parts of his job. \u201cLast year, through the whole season, it was great to be able to sit in the stands and look away from the game to see how much the experience meant to the people,\u201d he said. \u201cOur fans have been extremely loyal and supportive, and they got their payoff when we took the championship title.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Wendi Wheeler ’06 Last season, he didn\u2019t make any three-point shots, pull down any rebounds, or have any assists on the court. But Roger Griffith \u201984, executive vice president of the Minnesota Lynx, did have a great season\u2014in part because the Lynx brought home their first championship title, and in part because of the <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":6573,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44,7],"tags":[52],"class_list":["post-187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-athletics","category-featured-stories","tag-spring-2012"],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7934,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187\/revisions\/7934"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/now\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}