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Heather Lyke interview

HailToPitt725

Head Coach
May 16, 2016
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Looks like Lyke was available to media members and Alan Saunders of PSN covered some of it on Twitter. Very important topics covered.

- Lyke gave some more details on the athletic facility master plan. It'd be called "Victory Heights" and it'd be a total revamp of the Upper Hill, as most of us suspected. If you read the thread, it involves a 3,000-seat facility for volleyball, wrestling, and gymnastics, an indoor track facility and renovations to the Cost, along w/ a heavy investment in training and investment. Ruled out the idea that an on-campus stadium is part of the plans,

- She basically confirmed that we're going back to the retro colors
- After the 2018-19 season, the Pete court is being flipped to face the Zoo. Excellent decision.
- There's an offer on the table to resume the PSU series but they haven't signed it yet. It's a four-year deal that'd begin in 2026.
- Lance White's staff has been finalized and will be announced soon.
- The ACC Network is launching a TV studio inside the Pete and The University of Pittsburgh will be creating a major/minor that involves television production. Great idea.

This is the best I've felt about Pitt Athletics in a long time. Very exciting times. HAIL TO Pitt!
 
Looks like Lyke was available to media members and Alan Saunders of PSN covered some of it on Twitter. Very important topics covered.

- Lyke gave some more details on the athletic facility master plan. It'd be called "Victory Heights" and it'd be a total revamp of the Upper Hill, as most of us suspected. If you read the thread, it involves a 3,000-seat facility for volleyball, wrestling, and gymnastics, an indoor track facility and renovations to the Cost, along w/ a heavy investment in training and investment. Ruled out the idea that an on-campus stadium is part of the plans,

- She basically confirmed that we're going back to the retro colors
- After the 2018-19 season, the Pete court is being flipped to face the Zoo. Excellent decision.
- There's an offer on the table to resume the PSU series but they haven't signed it yet. It's a four-year deal that'd begin in 2026.
- Lance White's staff has been finalized and will be announced soon.
- The ACC Network is launching a TV studio inside the Pete and The University of Pittsburgh will be creating a major/minor that involves television production. Great idea.

This is the best I've felt about Pitt Athletics in a long time. Very exciting times. HAIL TO Pitt!
Will you have this pinned and this highlighted in GOLD

Ruled out the idea that an on-campus stadium is part of the plans,


So that SMF will give it a rest.
 
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Heather hit so many home runs with her announcements today, but she needs to drop the whole PSU series discussion. Yes if you are a historical football follower, the game should be played between in-state rivals. Other than that, its not a big care for me as a game. State College is not an attractive destination considering they are in the middle of nowhere and in the same state as us (some of us have camps up that way). Time to move on and play more national programs in different regions of the country, especially with where we are recruiting strong.
 
Maybe I wasn't paying attention which is possible but when was the last time a PITT AD layed out a coherent master plan??

In the past PITT AD's were very "reactive" and single issue focused.

Lyke is on the right track and is being proactive!
Memo to Lyke- forget the PSU series and the stupid on campus stadium idea and fight the battles you can control and win!

"it''s five o'clock somewhere"
Signed: Mr Buffett
Go PITT & CSU Rams!
 
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Heather hit so many home runs with her announcements today, but she needs to drop the whole PSU series discussion. Yes if you are a historical football follower, the game should be played between in-state rivals. Other than that, its not a big care for me as a game. State College is not an attractive destination considering they are in the middle of nowhere and in the same state as us (some of us have camps up that way). Time to move on and play more national programs in different regions of the country, especially with where we are recruiting strong.

Its one of the first questions asked. Every time.
 
Heather hit so many home runs with her announcements today, but she needs to drop the whole PSU series discussion. Yes if you are a historical football follower, the game should be played between in-state rivals. Other than that, its not a big care for me as a game. State College is not an attractive destination considering they are in the middle of nowhere and in the same state as us (some of us have camps up that way). Time to move on and play more national programs in different regions of the country, especially with where we are recruiting strong.
She knows PSU won't sign the deal to play, PSU knows she knows PSU won't sign the agreement and she knows PSU knows she knows that PSU won't sign the agreement. She is simply making sure that when history is written, there can be no doubt that they wussed out.
 
I’ll get crushed for this but I’m going ALL SMF in on this one

I’d give State 6 or 7 up there over 10 just to get the thing started...

There was a time when they came here for what, at least 10 yrs straight, or probably many more.....granted State was a Cow College and basically played on a HS Field, but we owned them and they came here....so let’s go there.

They now draw more than we do in 2.5 games....it’s all in their court.

The damn game sb played so give it a jump...

That’s all.
 
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She knows PSU won't sign the deal to play, PSU knows she knows PSU won't sign the agreement and she knows PSU knows she knows that PSU won't sign the agreement. She is simply making sure that when history is written, there can be no doubt that they wussed out.

And that's exactly how you have to deal with the nits. So they can't try to spin it differently.
 
I’ll get crushed for this but I’m going ALL SMF in on this one

I’d give State 6 or 7 up there over 10 just to get the thing started...

There was a time when they came here for what, at least 10 yrs straight, or probably many more.....granted State was a Cow College and basically played on a HS Field, but we owned them and they came here....so let’s go there.

They now draw more than we do in 2.5 games....it’s all in their court.

The damn game sb played so give it a jump...

That’s all.

Go home. You're drunk.
 
I’ll get crushed for this but I’m going ALL SMF in on this one

I’d give State 6 or 7 up there over 10 just to get the thing started...

There was a time when they came here for what, at least 10 yrs straight, or probably many more.....granted State was a Cow College and basically played on a HS Field, but we owned them and they came here....so let’s go there.

They now draw more than we do in 2.5 games....it’s all in their court.

The damn game sb played so give it a jump...

That’s all.
Penn State wanted to play as many games in Pittsburgh as they could at one time. They wanted to get a TV payday, and "back in the day" TV crews were not going to go bf State College to broadcast anything.

It's not Pitt's fault their campus has always been in an area where a game could be covered by a TV station.
 
Penn State wanted to play as many games in Pittsburgh as they could at one time. They wanted to get a TV payday, and "back in the day" TV crews were not going to go bf State College to broadcast anything.

It's not Pitt's fault their campus has always been in an area where a game could be covered by a TV station.
This occurred before that game was a TV game......

I would say from 1960 to 1972 that game was exclusively played in Pgh and maybe even a good part of the50s.

And granted State College was a Farm Town I acknowledged that just saying history shows they came here exclusively for many years.
 
She knows PSU won't sign the deal to play, PSU knows she knows PSU won't sign the agreement and she knows PSU knows she knows that PSU won't sign the agreement. She is simply making sure that when history is written, there can be no doubt that they wussed out.



Exactly. It wont' be her fault when the stadium is half empty and sales are down.
 
Exactly. It wont' be her fault when the stadium is half empty and sales are down.
I can assure you that sales are up, she said as much today, and the stadium won’t be half empty for a team that’s going to play in the ACC Championship.

Why am I overly confident, you might ask? Because today’s been a very good day for us and it won’t be ruined by a Penn State fan coming over to spoil it, damn it :)
 
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This occurred before that game was a TV game......

I would say from 1960 to 1972 that game was exclusively played in Pgh and maybe even a good part of the50s.

And granted State College was a Farm Town I acknowledged that just saying history shows they came here exclusively for many years.
It was played in Pittsburgh because Penn State wanted to play in Pittsburgh.

A lot of their fans try to rewrite history to say big bad Pitt forced little Penn State to play those games in Pittsburgh.
 
She is doing a great job.

The previous PITT AD's set a low bar but even with that Lyke has raised the bar to where it should be and she is doing a great job at this time in her tenure!

Keep it up Lyke!
People respond favorably to those who communicate their intentions, work hard and get results!

Now ( finally) it's easy to see Lyke's plan, because she did a good job communicating the plan and measurements of her progress against that plan.

I like her comments about changing the culture for PITT athletics. PITT needs to have it's unique sports culture like other colleges have. To date with all of the turnover in PITT AD's and coaches we've lost our unique culture.

All the great programs have a unique culture!



"it's five o'clock somewhere"
Signed: Mr Buffett
Go PITT & CSU Rams!
 
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