Vukovcan: Plenty of Reasons Pitt Decided Heather Lyke Had to Go

Pitt searching for a new athletic director to replace Heather Lyke is not the lead story that anyone envisioned heading into week of the Backyard Brawl.

But that’s what it is following the shocking news this morning of the University of Pittsburgh’s decision to fire Lyke.

While it’s shocking to a majority of Pitt fans, national media and people across college athletics, when you really examine things, it becomes less and less surprising.

Let me start by saying that since her hiring in 2017, Lyke did a good job as Pitt’s athletic director and that’s nearly unquestionable. But she was also far from perfect and certainly isn’t irreplaceable.

Let’s start with what most fans grade and evaluate an athletic director for and that’s the success on the field of the athletic teams.

Many people credit Lyke for the current success of many of the athletic teams at Pitt but to be fair, her she doesn’t deserve total credit. Reason for that is that if you look at her entire record of hiring coaches, it’s very much a mixed bag.

Football: Lyke inherited Pat Narduzzi
Men’s Basketball: Hired Jeff Capel but until 2 years ago, many people were questioning that hire.
Volleyball: Lyke inherited Dan Fisher
Wrestling: Hired Keith Gavin (was her first hire)
Men’s Soccer: Lyke inherited Jay Vidovich
Women’s Soccer: Hired Randy Waldrum in 2017
Women’s Basketball: Has gone through two coaches
Baseball: Hired Mike Bell

The bottom line is that Pitt’s two most successful programs have been volleyball and football, both of those coaches Lyke didn’t hire. And to be honest, the verdict is still out on what the future holds for the two most important programs: football and men’s basketball.

It was very obvious that Lyke put a big emphasis on the entire athletic department being successful, not just the two main sports football and men’s basketball. While that’s admirable, it doesn’t pay the bills and more importantly, her million-dollar vision of department success was never able to be paid for. Her much talked about ‘Victory Heights’ project that would benefit nearly every athletic team at Pitt is a great idea, but it still struggling to be funded four years later.

It’s nice to have big dreams, be good at everything and have nice things but, you have to be able to foot the bill for these ideas. Money and in particular spending money has always been a problem with Lyke.

Unless you are part of the inner workings of an athletic department or the university, the average person doesn’t know the overall financial health of an athletic department.

Unfortunately for Pitt, it isn’t good and that is a major reason for Lyke no longer being employed at Pitt and a huge reason as to why new Pitt chancellor Joan Gabel chose not to extend Lyke.

Despite not having it, Lyke continued to spend money “like a drunken sailor” like one person in the Pitt athletic department described to me. That same person also said, “you can’t go out and buy a BMW to drive when you can’t afford to make those payments.”

That was an issue for Lyke at Pitt and also when she was athletic director at Eastern Michigan, whose financial situation was a mess when she departed.

Pat Narduzzi and Heather Lyke November 30, 2019 — David Hague/PSN

If that was reason 1A for today’s news, reason 1B was Lyke’s failure to get with the new NIL world and to be able to develop big corporate relationships.

Too many people today fail to realize the top priority of an athletic director in 2024. Things have drastically changed, especially in the last handful of years.

A successful athletic director isn’t judged today by scheduling and coaching hirings, it’s all about money and how much can you bring into the university and athletic department.

The reality is that despite being here seven years, Lyke was never truly able to forge the important financial relationships with the right donors, alumni and Fortunate 500 companies to make Pitt athletics more successful.

Despite what critics and naysayers might say, they’re out there, you just have to find a way to tap into them. The University of Pittsburgh is one of the top universities in the country and has produced countless famous and successful alumni, an athletic department has to find them, forge meaningful relationships with them and find a way to tap into their bank account. I’m not saying it’s easy, but it’s doable.

The final thing that Lyke struggled with was fully getting on board with today’s world of NIL. Lyke and her athletic team were slow to react and embrace the changes that were coming to college athletics and that’s been detrimental to the athletic department. Fortunately, Chris Bickell and his 412 Alliance team stepped in and have since then, have done amazing things but they were forced to play catchup because of the athletic department’s resistance to get with what was coming. Because of that, Pitt remains behind its competitors.

By no means did I intend for this to come off as not appreciating the good things that Lyke did during her time at Pitt because she did plenty.

However, as I tweeted out weeks ago, public perception isn’t always reality when it comes to the job she did at Pitt.

The job now of Gabel is to find a replacement that fits the job qualifications of 2024, not 2000. I believe Pitt needs to go in a similar direction of the Big 12 Conference when they hired commissioner Brett Yormark.

At the time, his hiring was viewed as bizarre, but because of his diverse background, Yormark’s vision and ability to think out of the box has positively changed the overall perception and health of the Big 12 Conference.

That’s the task that the decision makers at Pitt are now faced with, finding a leader for the athletic department that has a vision and one that can be paid for. But more importantly, to find a way to get with the times and find ways to bring in money that the Pitt coaches can use to make their programs more competitive on the playing field.

Of course, it’s not easy, but it surely isn’t impossible.