Well, part of it is I basically post my opinion on every major-ish issue. Sometimes I am right and sometimes I am less right 😁. In this case, I was right. Pitt just isnt an athletic department that can have a new state-of-the art Olympics Sports venue. It was easy to see the waste of money it was. I dont want to hear that those athletes deserve a brand new facility. No they dont. They go to school for free and they generate no revenue for the department. It might hurt people's feelings but that's just the reality. We have 2 pro teams and every dollar and every bit of focus needs to be paid to that. Now, the irony is we may have to cut sports to pay for this: Lacrosse (shouldn't have been added)? Track/Cross Country? Heck, baseball maybe?
Heather dug a hole she could not fill
- Thread starter OmarMarino
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Well, part of it is I basically post my opinion on every major-ish issue. Sometimes I am right and sometimes I am less right 😁. In this case, I was right. Pitt just isnt an athletic department that can have a new state-of-the art Olympics Sports venue. It was easy to see the waste of money it was. I dont want to hear that those athletes deserve a brand new facility. No they dont. They go to school for free and they generate no revenue for the department. It might hurt people's feelings but that's just the reality. We have 2 pro teams and every dollar and every bit of focus needs to be paid to that. Now, the irony is we may have to cut sports to pay for this: Lacrosse (shouldn't have been added)? Track/Cross Country? Heck, baseball maybe?
Look at Scott Barnes. Self-sanctioned Pitt Basketball and got a promotion. The P12 literally died on his watch and while he doesn't share much of the blame, any AD of an Oregon St, Wash St, BC, Vanderbilt, etc has to do everything in their power to lobby for stability. How much did Barnes do lobby the P12 to take the initial ESPN deal that they turned down? That decision killed a historic conference. And somehow Barnes is still leading an athletic department.
Keep pontificating….I know for a fact that your view is not universally believed or accepted…..by people whose opinions count.
Yeah, I didn't say there weren't people that think a stadium is some panacea; mostly those who are motivated with hearts full of nostalgia instead of solid strategic thinking about resource allocation to actually address shortcomings and elevate program performance. But it is has not a priority for the university nor the athletic department in the previous and certainly the current environment where the financial realities of paying off athletes are the immediate problem. A football stadium is absolutely not a strategic place to throw resources at this stage, nor in a past stage. Talk about stadiums has been going on for decades in certain quarters. The money and other needed resources simply aren't there. That doesn't mean what if scenarios aren't constantly evaluated nor that it wouldn't be great to have some fantasy stadium, but frankly, the need isn't there. That hasn't changed.
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“Strategic place to throw resources”….in the next major realignment only one sport will be considered in determining who is in or out…..football. Anyone who believes that Pitt playing in a rented, oversized stadium where the vagrants congregate in Pittsburgh will not be considered a negative factor in this realignment has no aptitude for strategic thinking which is precisely what you can say about the chancellor who greenlighted tearing down Pitt Stadium. Add to that, anyone who doesn’t believe that Pitt playing in that rented stadium doesn’t negatively impact recruiting and Pitt’s image as a major player in college FB is clueless. People obsess over NIL when they ought to be concerned about factors which will increase the odds of Pitt having a seat at the FB table when the smoke clears…that’s strategic thinking ….not obsessing completely about factors which may increase Pitt’s ability to compete in the near term but which may not even be relevant or which may completely change 5 years from now .
And for the above reasons, Victory Heights shouldn’t have been a top priority capital investment….Lyke got this message loud and clear and ignored it.
There’s just no way I believe they thought winning would create more money. They didn’t have the channels in place to even collect the money. The NIL push was an utter failure under Heather. It was non existent. So if she was expecting money to flow in if Pitt won, she’s dumber than I thought.
Ok, prove it. You've insinuated at least twice Panther Alumni could donate around $500m. Where is anything proving that?
The vagrants? I go to every game and see maybe five panhandlers around the stadium. If you think that's bad, I don't know what to tell you.
Does it really need to be proven. Pitt alumni could easily do that. Same as most schools. It's just a matter of where their giving priorities lie.
She vanished from the public eye the last 12 months on the job. I suspect she thought she was going to get the OSU job the instant Gene Smith announced he was going to retire. She wanted that job badly. But OSU went to a guy who raises money. Heather out in the cold now has to hand in homework she put little effort into.
Why Pitt chose to move on from Heather Lyke — and the daunting challenge facing its next AD
When the University of Pittsburgh relieved Heather Lyke of her duties as athletic director Sept. 9, the move surprised many in Pitt’s athletic community...www.post-gazette.com
Literally
She sees the handwriting on the wall and interviews for the Northwestern AD, but gets skunked there.
She’s 0-2 and mentally checked out of Pitt 10 months earlier.
No more cards left to play and her plans get a F for not Fu__ing trying and turning in a POS to her boss.
I admire Pitt for finally expecting more than mediocrity.
Yeah, and a comparatively tiny on-campus stadium will have zero impact on Pitt's chances in the next round of realignment. Zero. It might actually hurt it's chances comparatively. The SEC and Big Ten have no interest in teams with 45K stadiums.
You think UCLA playing 20 miles off campus in a more than half empty rented stadium, that is significantly larger than Acrisure with less total attendance counts, impacted the B10's decision one iota?
If you think the problems with the attractiveness of Pitt for other conferences is its stadium situation, then the delusion is all yours. And if you think the stadium is what is causing Pitt to lose recruits, you are also exceedingly naive of the reality of what is going on.
Here's the thing about Victory Heights. 1) it was needed 2) in various iterations, the facilities to be built for some of these sports were actually contained in various prior university master facilities planning documents 3) it actually makes Pitt a facilities peer for these programs with Big Ten and SEC programs, and 4)...and this is the most important one...it was actually a realistic and obtainable goal.
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And you have been wrong for 20 years because support has improved since playing in Pitt stadium and revenue has ticked up substantially
Just because you won’t leave the couch
Lobbying for stability is a hilarious notion
You mean how Nordy advocated for stability of the Big East , until we got an invite and bolted ?
Stop it
Yea but he may if an on campus stadium allows seat cushions.
Or…… Maybe the new AD seeks donation money outside of the dry well that is defined by the notoriously tight fisted, cheap yinzer ba$stards that define themselves as the Pitt Football and Men’s Basketball fanbase
To date the conference changes have been based on macro issues like tv market size and national image. When the next and perhaps final realignment decisions come, micro issues will differentiate who’s in and out….issues like is a school committed enough to FB to actually own their own stadium. A 45-50,000 on campus stadium says Pitt is committed to big time FB and not “ we are wishy about FB and want to minimize exit barriers should we decide get out of FB” so we’ll play in an oversized monstrosity that is the Steelers home field. Your analysis is wrong….you have defended the decision to tear down Pitt stadium for years. And the stadium issue is the number one negative factor used by schools competing against Pitt for recruits….once again you are detached from reality and can’t help yourself from implicitly defending the razing of Pitt stadium.
An on-campus stadium is something that will never be an issue as far as conference expansion is concerned.
I read that article and the impression I'm getting is that Pitt is not going to do much towards remaining competitive unless someone comes riding in on a white horse with an open check book. If that person exists, they better step up soon.
I think this is as simple as Gabel didn't really care for Lyke. For whatever reasons, interviewing for jobs, poor financial planning, not a fund raiser, slow to NIL, etc...
These changes happen all the time when new CEOs come in. They like to bring in their own people, so it's easy to nit pick why you want a change. Lets face it, Heather was decent but not great. She dropped the ball on NIL and was hyper focused on her crowning achievement of Victory Heights, but couldn't raise money for it.
These changes happen all the time when new CEOs come in. They like to bring in their own people, so it's easy to nit pick why you want a change. Lets face it, Heather was decent but not great. She dropped the ball on NIL and was hyper focused on her crowning achievement of Victory Heights, but couldn't raise money for it.
yeah I heard similar things. You have to get along with the new boss and that was an issue.
Yes, that is a huge concern. I don't mind at all wanting to see better fundraising, but thinking the university is not going to have to put more into athletics is fraught with potential disaster.
The implications for the athletic department having to turn to private equity and mortgage its future when the university has the power to issue its own bonds just reeks of major short shortsightedness and possible disaster.
From my understanding, the change of AD was not pushed by any particular boosters (unlike, say, when Jamie Dixon was shoved out). What happens to the athletic department, whether the change is beneficial or not, will dominate a large part of Joan's legacy. She 100% owns this.
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Nobody is likely to come riding in on a white horse. Pitt assured that by moving football off campus, and before that by not supporting the program to sometimes being hostile towards it in the decades before the move.
Anything close to a white horse died with the Golden Panthers. But it's not like we have any idea if that was even sustainable. The school was already prioritizing other things. Moving football off campus makes it easier for Pitt to bail on football and that sort of hinders asking anyone to go all in. That may ultimately be what happens.
Pretty much. It's likely been on the track to that destination for decades now. I tapped out a few years ago after realizing that they just don't care like other institutions.
Buddy - from a dude who won’t go to games because your sensitive butt cheeks can’t stand the hard plastic -
Take a knee
You morons couldn’t even fundraise enough for pizza with your “Save our Stadium”! Weak sauce .
Agreed. We’ll see. And good luck trying to get blood from the turnip that is the bit€hing yinzer.
I’m laughing at you and the chancellor you idolize!,,,,
so pitt cant get 1 / 10th of the money to build a volleball arena in land we already own but there are pitt fans that still are holding onto the dream that we can finance a new stadium?
I love it. fat drunk and stupid is absolutely the way to go thru life and this board proves it.. keep up the good work pitt fans.
I love it. fat drunk and stupid is absolutely the way to go thru life and this board proves it.. keep up the good work pitt fans.
hey @HailtoPitt, how does souf know your butt cheeks are sensitive?
Listen, i get it, it's 2024 and you freaks are doing God knows what but that's still a tad weird man.
Because some of us have long memories .
He stopped going to games because seat cushions were refused at HeinZ .
It’s the only real reason he’s autistic about pitt stadium .
yo, i went to the ysu scrimmage a few weeks back and since there were like 5,000 people there, i actually sat in those grey seats behind the endzones, with the cushiony seats. the upmc zone or whatever they call it.
Man oh man, they were sweet. my butt cheeks loved it. i was unaware of HTP's sensitive ass cheeks putting him on the spectrum, that's a new one to me.
Lets get him some risperdal pills and get him back to the Acc (the stadium nickname, not the conference), although we may have to limit his tailgating, we dont want him going nuts on these meds with 12 beers in him.. so i volunteer you to watch him if he pounds a 1/2 case pre-gamin..
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