but dont you think there is a difference between "kicking us out (which no one is suggesting) and an expectation from the conference to do better? Is it that far fetched, given how poorly our minor sports have been?
I think it’s pretty far-fetched, yes.
Look, the ACC knew what it was getting when it took in Pitt athletics. Nothing has materially changed here — especially from a facilities standpoint. We are basically the same overall athletic program now as we were the day we joined the ACC.
Let me amend that statement by saying that we have obviously made some improvements with our athletic facilities, but we had a long way to go when we joined and we still have a long way to go to have middle of the road ACC facilities.
I think it comes down to Lyke making the case to Gallagher and the BOT by saying, “How can I be expected to compete with all these other universities whenever we don’t even have the basic facilities that they literally ALL have?”
Even after this project is complete, Pitt is going to probably be the only Division I school in the country that doesn’t even have a single outdoor track on its campus. I mean Robert Morris and Duquesne each have outdoor tracks on their respective campuses and Pitt doesn’t have one?
That just defies common sense.
I know, I know – there’s no space and blah, blah, blah. Fine, then make a deal with the city to claim Schenley Oval as your track and field facility. It is absurd that university has gone decades now without so much as a track on its campus.
Also, the studies all show that your most loyal donors for most universities are your former student-athletes. At Pitt, that is not the case and a big reason why is because at Pitt, it’s not a great experience for the student-athletes because their facilities are so horrible across the board.
This is an expensive project but a project that is 30 years past due. Let’s take care of it and do it right so that we can legitimately compete with all of these other schools that do take college athletics seriously.
Then, once we get that part squared away, let’s take another look at football.
I’m with you entirely on the need to build a new stadium that better fits the size of the Pitt fan base. Our atmosphere at Heinz Field is absolutely terrible and that’s mostly because it is way, way too big for our needs.
I don’t disagree with any of that.
However, it never should’ve gotten to this point in the first place, but now that it’s here you have to start somewhere. I’m fine with them starting with literally the rest of the athletic department first and then working their way back to football.
We have a usable football facility right now. We don’t even have D1 caliber facilities in many of these other sports.
It sucks that we find ourselves here but don’t blame Lyke or Gallagher for the negligence of their predecessors. Blame Pederson and Nordenberg for this mess. Scott Barnes. Jeff Long. J. Dennis O’Connor. Hell, blame Oval Jaynes and Dean Billick! Those are the clowns that dropped the ball here, all Lyke and Gallagher are doing is cleaning up the university’s myriad past mistakes.
that is how I look at the situation and why I absolutely don’t agree that this is a mistake.
We can’t afford to make an either/or choice here. We have to take care of ALL of our athletic facilities. I firmly believe football will come in time because that will be an easy project to raise money for.
I don’t think that project would take long at all to get off the ground. I think there’s a huge appetite for it among the Pitt faithful. However, if you really want to make a major difference, you must first take care of the non-rev sports so that by the time we do build those facilities, and then follow that up with a football facility, we are cooking with gas for the first time in decades.
