I know there’s a thread on the Allegheny County Bar Association event with AD Heather Lyke that was hosted this morning, but I wanted to create one to address what she said today because this post is long.
I thought she was very impressive and very candid in her assessment of Pitt Athletics. She's definitely got a clear vision and clear goals. She seemed to be very excited about being at Pitt. Her leadership style was evident as well, and I think she'll be successful.
I won’t be able to remember everything that was said, but here is what I remember:
She said that right now, Pitt Athletics is 15th out of 15 in the ACC when it comes to wins and losses and competitiveness overall and she will, "only live with that for one more year and then things will need to change." In context, it was clear she was saying she will fire coaches and department employees (and it sounds like she had a few in mind) who don't start winning and moving the department forward. I expect that she’ll continue to clean house and bring in new people as she has been doing since arriving. She didn't say this, this was my impression. She understandably thinks highly of OSU Athletics and I think you can probably expect her to keep moving existing employees out and bringing in people who are from that culture and department.
She was very candid that our facilities outside of basketball and football are bad, "the worst in the ACC" and in some cases "frankly worse than what we had at Eastern Michigan." On that note, she talked about redeveloping the upper campus athletics buildings and making it a real "athletics campus" and building a new student rec center which she also said Pitt is really behind on. She said there is enough space on the hill to fully house an athletics campus, the space just needs to be leveled and reimagined. She mentioned tearing down Fitzgerald, Trees, Cost, and the OC lot and building a new complex with modern up to date facilities and a 3,000 seat arena for wrestling, gymnastics and volleyball and parking. She mentioned the athletics facilities master plan that Populous is doing. She said Pitt should build a large student rec center as part of it. There was no discussion or hint at a football stadium for those who are curious. She sounded very serious about this and if I had to guess this priority 1A.
She said she took the job because of Chancellor Gallagher and that he's totally committed to athletics and that they share the same vision. On the note, she loves Narduzzi and believes he's very happy and the perfect fit. She complimented the Rooneys for giving her and Pitt / Narduzzi what they need to compete when it’s possible for them to do so. She talked a lot about how poorly managed the relationships have been between Pitt Athletics and interested parties in the community. She cited a local telecom company which provides services to the ACC but who had no relationship with Pitt and that when she took the job they reached out to her and told her what they do for the ACC but that they had no relationships and hadn’t been contacted by anyone at Pitt. She did not say this, but the impression I was left with is that it’s clear to her 140 days in that Pitt Athletics hasn’t been competently managed in a long time.
She also talked a lot about unifying the student athlete experience and how right now, if you're a football or basketball player your experience is good and totally different than the experience of players for the 17 other sports. She wants to focus on improving the quality and experience of being a student athlete and creating a unified Pitt student-athlete community. She used her time as a Michigan student athlete as the model she wants to emulate.
She talked about how it's clear to her that the athletics department doesn't expect success and isn’t really prepared for it. She asked the audience if anyone knew how many conference championships Pitt’s won in the 4 years we’ve been in the ACC. One person knew the answer, which is 1. She asked which team won it, it was wrestling. She then asked if we knew where the ACC Conference Championship trophy was. No one did. She then told us how way down in the back of Fitzgerald in the wrestling practice facility there is a small room off to the side where interns do film prep. In that room there is a couch, a computer, and two end tables. The ACC Championship trophy sits on one of the two end tables, because there is nowhere else to put it. Pitt Athletics doesn’t plan to win championships so they don’t plan for what to do when it happens – no one ever built a trophy area for wrestling. It was a pretty damning anecdote.
Finally, there was a question about the viability of the ACC Network (she talked about the financial advantages the SEC and Big Ten get because of their networks a lot too and how the ACC Network will help close that gap when it launches) in light of cord cutters and cable subscription losses. She said ESPN’s CEO (Skip or something) made it clear to the ACC Commissioner and ADs that the Network is still a go and ESPN believes that part of why they’re not gaining audiences is because they’re not adding new content and the ACC Network is new content. She said ACC schools are spending millions to build new on-campus studios including Pitt and that Pitt’s is likely going to be in the lobby of the Pete in the area near the gift shop and hall of champions and that she wants it to be like the Today Show set up where there’s glass and people can sort of interact with the hosts, etc. It was not clear to me whether this was just one option or whether this is set in stone.
Anyway, I liked her presentation, I was very impressed and in my opinion she blows Barnes and Steve-O out of the water.
I thought she was very impressive and very candid in her assessment of Pitt Athletics. She's definitely got a clear vision and clear goals. She seemed to be very excited about being at Pitt. Her leadership style was evident as well, and I think she'll be successful.
I won’t be able to remember everything that was said, but here is what I remember:
She said that right now, Pitt Athletics is 15th out of 15 in the ACC when it comes to wins and losses and competitiveness overall and she will, "only live with that for one more year and then things will need to change." In context, it was clear she was saying she will fire coaches and department employees (and it sounds like she had a few in mind) who don't start winning and moving the department forward. I expect that she’ll continue to clean house and bring in new people as she has been doing since arriving. She didn't say this, this was my impression. She understandably thinks highly of OSU Athletics and I think you can probably expect her to keep moving existing employees out and bringing in people who are from that culture and department.
She was very candid that our facilities outside of basketball and football are bad, "the worst in the ACC" and in some cases "frankly worse than what we had at Eastern Michigan." On that note, she talked about redeveloping the upper campus athletics buildings and making it a real "athletics campus" and building a new student rec center which she also said Pitt is really behind on. She said there is enough space on the hill to fully house an athletics campus, the space just needs to be leveled and reimagined. She mentioned tearing down Fitzgerald, Trees, Cost, and the OC lot and building a new complex with modern up to date facilities and a 3,000 seat arena for wrestling, gymnastics and volleyball and parking. She mentioned the athletics facilities master plan that Populous is doing. She said Pitt should build a large student rec center as part of it. There was no discussion or hint at a football stadium for those who are curious. She sounded very serious about this and if I had to guess this priority 1A.
She said she took the job because of Chancellor Gallagher and that he's totally committed to athletics and that they share the same vision. On the note, she loves Narduzzi and believes he's very happy and the perfect fit. She complimented the Rooneys for giving her and Pitt / Narduzzi what they need to compete when it’s possible for them to do so. She talked a lot about how poorly managed the relationships have been between Pitt Athletics and interested parties in the community. She cited a local telecom company which provides services to the ACC but who had no relationship with Pitt and that when she took the job they reached out to her and told her what they do for the ACC but that they had no relationships and hadn’t been contacted by anyone at Pitt. She did not say this, but the impression I was left with is that it’s clear to her 140 days in that Pitt Athletics hasn’t been competently managed in a long time.
She also talked a lot about unifying the student athlete experience and how right now, if you're a football or basketball player your experience is good and totally different than the experience of players for the 17 other sports. She wants to focus on improving the quality and experience of being a student athlete and creating a unified Pitt student-athlete community. She used her time as a Michigan student athlete as the model she wants to emulate.
She talked about how it's clear to her that the athletics department doesn't expect success and isn’t really prepared for it. She asked the audience if anyone knew how many conference championships Pitt’s won in the 4 years we’ve been in the ACC. One person knew the answer, which is 1. She asked which team won it, it was wrestling. She then asked if we knew where the ACC Conference Championship trophy was. No one did. She then told us how way down in the back of Fitzgerald in the wrestling practice facility there is a small room off to the side where interns do film prep. In that room there is a couch, a computer, and two end tables. The ACC Championship trophy sits on one of the two end tables, because there is nowhere else to put it. Pitt Athletics doesn’t plan to win championships so they don’t plan for what to do when it happens – no one ever built a trophy area for wrestling. It was a pretty damning anecdote.
Finally, there was a question about the viability of the ACC Network (she talked about the financial advantages the SEC and Big Ten get because of their networks a lot too and how the ACC Network will help close that gap when it launches) in light of cord cutters and cable subscription losses. She said ESPN’s CEO (Skip or something) made it clear to the ACC Commissioner and ADs that the Network is still a go and ESPN believes that part of why they’re not gaining audiences is because they’re not adding new content and the ACC Network is new content. She said ACC schools are spending millions to build new on-campus studios including Pitt and that Pitt’s is likely going to be in the lobby of the Pete in the area near the gift shop and hall of champions and that she wants it to be like the Today Show set up where there’s glass and people can sort of interact with the hosts, etc. It was not clear to me whether this was just one option or whether this is set in stone.
Anyway, I liked her presentation, I was very impressed and in my opinion she blows Barnes and Steve-O out of the water.
