What happened in the Lyke situation? | The Morning Pitt: 8/29/2024

okay so a as you probably know um I've said it before these videos we tape them the day before you know today's video was taped yesterday yesterday's video was taped on Tuesday tomorrow's video I'm going to tape later today it it it's what we do I mean I can't wake up well I mean can and I do usually wake up pretty early but I'm not going to wake up at 5:00 a.m. and record that day's video I usually wait you know I wait till mid afternoon late afternoon sometimes into the evening depending on on the day and what's going on um so today's video was recorded yesterday and as you can see by the headline it's about Heather like and her apparent candidacy for the Northwestern athletic director job uh We've since learned in the time since I recorded that video that vova athletic director Mark Jackson's going to get the job um at Northwestern which means Heather likes not getting that job now as you can see this is rather lengthy video and it was long even before this extra little part because this part that I'm recording right now I've recorded after the whole video was already sort of in the can as they say in the industry so I'm adding this extra little addendum here at the beginning uh a bit of a disclaimer because there are points in this video where I talk about if she gets a Northwestern job why she's a candidate for the Northwestern job this and that but the bulk of the video is not really about that the bulk of the the bulk of the video and and I think some of the main points of the video and some of the main things we talk about on this video I I think are still very relevant and I think are still very important um and I think are are a part of the conversation about the overall state of things with the athletic department um I stand by what I say in this video um I stand by the things I've written on panther.com the last couple of days you know I I think those things are all very accurate and I think they're important talking points and part of the discussion when it comes to Heather Lake her Legacy at pit her tenure at pit and what she's accomplished where maybe she needs to have accomplished more I think those things are all worth talking about and all worth considering uh you know it seems likely that she'll get a contract extension it's kind of where this whole thing started is she wanted a contract extension of a certain length pit wanted to give her a contract of extension of a a shorter length and that's really the Crux of what this whole thing is about is why pit wanted to give Heather like less of a contract extension than she was initially looking for which I think is probably what's going to end up being the case uh I don't know what the narrative will be about Heather like and why she didn't get the Northwestern job um but I I think probably the the reality is I I think she was Passover and will ultimately agree to the deal that pit had offered her in the first place so that's you know I I I think kind of where things are and it's why we're going to keep the video as is I'm not going to re-record the whole video I'm just adding this little part on to say at this at the top she's not getting the Northwestern job somebody else is but most of these other things we're talking about here are relevant so keep that in mind as we move through and um yeah thanks for uh you know rolling with it as we uh as we [Music] go you know I debated about when to do this episode debated about how to do this episode debated about whether to do this episode and went back and forth about this or that but the reality is right now the topics of Heather Lake the Northwestern ad job pits athletic department pit Chancellor Joan Gable the entirety of college sports the director of Athletics position at pit all these things are intertwined and all these things are incredibly relevant and pressing right now like to the point where I'm recording this episode you know uh midday on Wednesday you know because we have the live show uh you know we had the live show on Wednesday night so it couldn't really wait until to do it then uh but there's there's you know a nonzero chance that by the time this is released on Thursday there might be news on this front and if you're unaware the the the news the latest developments is that Heather lake is involved with the Northwestern ad search uh you know seemingly a finalist interviewing this week potentially with a decision to come who knows maybe today maybe tomorrow um and the decision could come today and not get announced publicly until tomorrow or get reported by P D or somebody like that uh and so it's it's pressing and it's relevant and it's important and I think it's an important conversation to have we've been having it on the message boards for a couple days now a a really long thread on the message board about not just Heather like potentially going to Northwestern but about pit Athletics overall and what the state is of the athletic department at a time a point in time where the entirety of College athletics is to some extent up in the air you know and you don't really know what the landscape is going to look like one day to the next because it feels like it's changing that abruptly and and while it's not quite daytoday in terms of changes uh you know I think if you look at the last three years of college athletics compared to the previous 50 I would say it's it's rather seismic and rather abrupt as things are changing and here pit finds itself right in the center of it all uh in the ACC a conference that is regularly targeted as one that could be on the chopping block potentially looking for a new athletic director there's a lot to dig into here there's a lot to talk about and today's the day we're going to do it so let's have a conversation about pit Athletics Pit's director of Athletics and just generally the state of things on the Thursday edition of the morning pit here on youtube.com/ pencom yeah I was like you know we're going to have to talk about this at some point we're going to have to have a conversation about this we're going to have to get into the topic on on one of these morning pit episodes but Friday's the mailbag so we couldn't wait and do it then Monday we're going to be talking about the game the pick Kent State game because oh yeah by the way there's still football being played this week which is sweet and will be a sweet relief from uh the rest of this stuff although I don't think it'll be far from anyone's mind um but on Monday we're going to be talking about the game Tuesday we'll probably be talking about quarterbacks one way or the other uh you know with regardless of what patner doy says on at his Monday press conference we're going to be having a conversation about quarterbacks I suspect on the Tuesday edition of the morning pit and so I mean I like I wasn't going to put this conversation off until Wednesday I wasn't going to wait until Wednesday to talk about the most pressing issue in pit Athletics right now so well today's the day uh today's the day that we need to talk about it of course you know uh the deal what we always ask you to do like this video And subscribe youtube.com/ pancom is our YouTube channel where we have all of our pit video content we have these daily morning pit videos our weekly live stream like we did last night our postgame shows which I am very much looking forward to on Saturday after the game we'll be live right here on youtube.com/ panel.com to break down pick Kent State and drink and talk football that'll be a lot of fun uh we have video interviews and press conferences and all those different things that we always do every day right here at youtube.com/ pan com and the way to be sure you don't miss any of it is to subscribe to our YouTube channel there it is subscribe buttons right down there and then of course don't forget about the website panther.com panther-lair.com pittsburgh. rivals.com it is the most comprehensive source of pit sports news on the internet football basketball and recruiting you find it all at panther.com and message boards where quite frankly a whole lot of the conversation that we're about to have right here for the next 15 minutes it has been happening on the message boards for the last like two days a lot of you on the message boards might watch this video and listen to the podcast and be like I've been hearing you say these things for the last 48 hours dude find some new material but the reality is you know everybody on the message boards has been reading this stuff uh we can have this conversation in more of an open venue I think uh more more with the public so we're going to do that here on the morning pit but anyway I mean if you want to be up on everything that's going on in pit Athletics uh basketball football recruiting General Administration and all those different things the place to do it is at panther.com panther-lair.com Pittsburgh . rivals.com all right so Heather like um potentially uh maybe likely probably going to Northwestern to become the athletic director there um this her latest um diance with other schools we know Ohio State she was in the mix for the oh Ohio state job uh I think maybe Michigan Michigan State I think some West Coast schools maybe UCLA or USC maybe both uh she has certainly been mentioned in connection with a number of jobs over the past five years and you know understandably so I think there are a lot of reasons why Heather L would appear to be a an attractive athletic director candidate uh I think when you look at the resume and you look at the bullet points uh they are all very positive I mean you see the national accolades that have been built you know over the years uh you know the the recognition that she has gotten I look and and I'll say I mean we're going to look at the the the good and the bad the up and the down of the Heather likee era in pit Athletics but there's no question that there's been some pretty high achievements in terms of onfield onc Court results since Heather like got to pit in 2017 I think it was you know the the volleyball program I mean it's the most successful program at pit you know and that has happened on her watch the women uh both soccer programs the men's soccer and women's soccer programs have been ascending in recent years uh both you know looking like programs on the rise and that's happened on her watch uh pit football won an ACC Championship on her watch pit men's basketball has finally hit a Resurgence for the first time in 10 years over the last two seasons again that happened on her watch there have been considerable facilities upgrades and that's undeniable that's tangible I mean you could look around pits athletic facilities whether in the south side with the football program or everything that's happening up on top of the hill in Oakland and and it's it's impressive there's a giant hole with massive construction happening next door to the Peterson Event Center and that's all been her her project she has been the driving force behind that she has led the charge for the Victory Heights project to improve the facilities for a number of pit uh pits Olympic Sports programs uh much needed upgrades for programs whose facilities had fallen into pretty considerable disrepair over the years these were things that needed to be done and she's gotten a lot of them done and and I think when you look at the successes like the the the actual results of the sports in addition to kind of how she has led the athletic department in terms of the facilities upgrades and and the resources that have been put into the sports uh and and her position within the ACC and kind of you know some of the leadership spots she's found herself in in college athletics in general nationally I mean you can understand why she has become rather prominent and and well well known uh and she shows up on lists of the top athletic directors in the country and that's become something of a regular occurrence I and and I think all of that has sort of led to a general feeling among the pit fan base that she's done a really really good job and there's no denying those accolades that I just laid out there you I I don't think there's any question about that um and so it's curious that we're in this situation that we're in right now because a lot of this situation of heatherlake looking at Northwestern considering Northwestern seems to be driven by something of an impass between Heather like and uh Pitt's you know so-called lower campus Administration and and there is you know there this is sort of uh inside baseball shorthand of lower campus and upper campus uh uh otherwise referred to as the cathedral and the Peterson events center and and you understand that mean sort of they're not different operating bodies but they are different operating bodies even if they work you know one very much is under the other and they all sort of work toward ostensibly the same goal which is the betterment of pit but you have the university administration led by the chancellor and you have the athletic department led by the athletic director or in this case the director of Athletics and so there seems to be best way to say it is probably that they're not entirely in alignment between lower campus and upper campus that that they don't always see eye to eye that the same vision is is not shared and uh largely this dates back to when Joan Gable became the the chancellor last summer uh it's been about a year since Gable replaced Patrick Gallagher Gallagher being the chancellor who hired Heather like and you always end up with I think some interesting and unique Dynamics when you have when you replace the boss right when you get a new boss uh it it creates interesting Dynamics I mean you could go back to some of the athletic director um you know musical chairs that's been played of of you know Pat nzi being hired when Randy juel was the interim ad and Patrick Gallagher the chancellor largely led the charge and then Scott Barnes comes in was hired after pat rzi was hired and then of course Barnes leaves after a couple years and Heather L is hired and so Pat rzi getting new athletic directors it's it creates an interesting Dynamic and I think that's the case with Heather Lake and Joan Gable and you know as far as we can tell there's a bit of a difference of opinion about what kind of contract extension Heather like uh should get and and there's a there are different feelings on either side of the aisle there again that that lower campus upper campus separation and I don't mean to paint it entirely as a uh you know that it's viewed as an US versus them from either side I think there's very much a feeling on all sides that there's one us it's just within that us you have you know again differing opinions and maybe differing Visions so why with all the accolades and with all the success and with all the uh achievements and accomplishments why would there be hesitation on the part of lower campus on the part of Joan Gable on the part of the chancellor University Administration why would there be a hesitation or reluctance to agree to a a longer deal with Heather like or you know yeah that's probably the best way to say it why would there be that that reluctance well I think there's a few things to look at Heather leg's been the athletic director the director of Athletics at pit uh for about seven years now in that time she's made roughly a dozen head coaching hires give her you know depending on how you count some of the different sports some cross country you're swimming and Diving I mean you're right around 12 hires two of those hires have been repeat hires because she hired um Lance white for the women's basketball program uh it was it was one of her early hires she she had a lot of early hirees she made a lot of moves in her first year year and a half or so most prominently replacing Kevin Sing with Jeff cable but baseball softball uh women's basketball as well um she made a gymnastics hire pretty early on uh with Samantha Snyder she has since replaced Lance white and Samantha Snider hired a new women's basketball coach and a new gymnastics coach so kind of getting a a do over there which is fine not every head coach works out and you sometimes find yourself in a position to uh need to make a change but there's a lot of hires over the course of about 7even years years and when you look at you know this roughly dozen or so hires that Heather like has made and you start counting like which ones have been genuinely successful which ones have really achieved at a high level because I mean when you talk about some of the most prominent programs at pit you know when we listed those accomplishments that the great success of volleyball that's Dan Fischer pretty sure he was a Steve Peterson hire you know when you talk about the men's soccer program success that was Jay vidovich I think he was a an interim ad I think he was Randy juel um you talk about obviously the ACC Championship was Paton rzi he was a Randy juel Patrick Gallagher hire when you look at Heather lik's most successful hires to this point you have Randy waldram with the women's soccer program which absolutely that that that is a smashing success um I think you know you could look at Men's Basketball for how Jeff cable has panned out in the last two years um and you could you could probably look at wrestling for the success that Keith Gavin has had uh you know I I feel like that program probably still has a ceiling it couldn't reach uh but I think they they've had as much success as anybody in the department you know save for maybe volleyball uh it's been a a pretty successful program largely on the individual level but it's been a pretty successful program that's kind of it for the successful hires I mean you could say that well baseball is a little more stabilized under Mike Bell than was under Joe jordano uh I guess but it's and baseball has I I think gotten closer to sort of a relevant position in the ACC but it's not entirely there yet and it hasn't really been able to sustain any the the the sort of flashes of success that they've achieved otherwise of her hires you know you don't really see a lot that jumps out and even those those programs I talked about I mean women's soccer I I think undeniably Randy waldram done a great job but you know you talk about men's basketball with Jeff capable yeah the last two years have been really good I'm as I'm on board that you know I'm I'm I'm on that hype train as much as anybody believe me and I'm and I'm driving it but the reality is and and I think we all understood this at the time after a year or four it was largely a buyout that kept jave cable at pit rather than than patience or or you know foresight uh or or the vision to see what capable was building I think if the buyout was less if the years left on the contract were lower I don't think Jeff cable gets to year five and and and I don't think I'm this shouldn't be like a holy cow really I think we all understood that at the time right I mean I think and if you read pan.com and we said that multiple times like he's not getting fired because it's just not a good use of money to buy out all of those years you know and so yes basketball had men's basketball has succeeded in the last two seasons but given the option those two seasons probably would not have happened so you take that with that understanding and while Keith Gavin has done a good job I think with the wrestling program I think it's a very solid stable wrestling Pro very solid stable program I think Keith Gavin has done a good job with it uh there was if you recall and this was one of her early hires there was a little bit of controversy around that hire because it was felt that uh Pat Santoro the former pit wrestler the standout four-time All-American two-time national champion at pit who had years of head coaching experience was pretty much lined up for that job and somewhere along the way things got all scrambled and I don't want to say they ended up with Keith Gavin obviously Gavin himself a very accomplished pit wrestler and and c and and as I say someone who I think has done a really good job leading the program but it's the path of how you got there that sort of says well in a vacuum the last two years of pit Ben's basketball and and the years of of pit wrestling under Keith Gavin have have been good but I don't think you can entirely look at it in a in a vacuum when you're considering the entirety of a you know the director of Athletics uh accolades and and resume bullet points because on the resume it will say uh you know Jeff Cable's success it'll say the wrestling success it'll say the ACC Championship it'll say the volleyball program it it will say what the soccer programs have done it'll claim all of these things but you I think you need that context right I think you need to understand that context and I think it's important to include it and then you move on to more of sort of the administrative side of things of how this this has all operated and and where the where the athletic department is where they've been and where they've gotten under Heather likes leadership and and one reality that that that is undeniable I've had enough people who know about these kinds of things tell me it um I I think maybe it might even be admitted by uh some of the athletic department leadership who operated in this way the reality is pit has been chronically slow to adapt to the new era of college sports I think there was a point three years ago where nil was very clearly a very big part of college sports and wasn't going away and was only going to get bigger and the support of the fans was only going to become more and more crucial and at that point forward thinking you athletic departments Visionary you know athletic departments with vision athletic departments who understood that like we can wish this away but it's not going to go away we can say we hate it we can say we don't like it but it's not going to go away and so like I said a lot of times that like you know I I think what it comes down to for fans is you just because this is what the system is you have to hold your nose and participate if you want your your school to be competitive well that applies to Administration as well it applies to administrators at the top of athletic departments and the ones who bought in the ones who embraced it the ones who said yes we are going to do everything we possibly can up to an including the very precise letter of the law we are going to dive headlong into this are the ones that have been able to be successful because even the schools with massive fan bases and incredible fan mobilization out by thirdparty groups I mean SEC schools that have been able to mobilize their fans through their collectives and whatnot have still had the support and the backing of the athletic departments at their schools I I tell this story often you know I think last year two it might have been two years ago it was either last year the year before Old Miss for like the month of September I want to say said we are pausing all donations to the Old Miss athletic department we we we we will not accept donations anything you are planning to donate to us send it to the Collective Now pit may or may not have been able to do something like that um given the the state laws in Pennsylvania but that's the kind that that's an example of an athletic department throwing its support behind the collective behind the nil efforts because it understood that's what needs to happen in order to be successful pit has not done that up until somewhere in the last six months or so slowly feet dragging pit has moved into this era pit has embraced and and supported the nil era and and what it means for University of Pittsburgh Athletics slowly but surely and while all the there was all that dragging of feet which is really what it was other schools were getting ahead other schools were mobilizing other schools were putting a an organization together and pit wasn't and so pit ends up behind and when you look at why you know pit probably Trails a lot of other ACC schools and nil donations and the nil War chest and the nil budget which are all very real things it's not 100% of the reason I I'm not going to say that the athletic Department's reticence to and reluctance to get involved is 100% of the reason but it's a big percentage and it's got a whole lot to do with it there were very few points in the early years of nil where Pit's athletic department was acting to assist Alliance 412 and and this is I mean you I think you can ask a lot of people in a lot of places and you're going to get this same kind of response and and to and to some extent some of it is about background Heather like you look at her resume where's she from I don't I don't mean Michigan or Ohio State or something like that her background is in compliance and and and she spent a long time there she was in enforcement with the NCAA and a lot of her time prior to becoming the athletic director at Eastern Michigan was spent in compliance and I think a lot of the people she has surrounded herself with are have compliance backgrounds and I think if that's where you come from if that's where you've spent decades working in college athletics in compliance it's really hard to stomach that this is what happens now but this is what happens now and whether you like it or not or whether you can stomach it or not you need to get on board but I shouldn't use present tense you need to get on board you needed to get on board a long time ago and this I think is one of the major holes on Heather leg's resume a lot of great bullet points lot of things to be excited about but some misses and I think nil is one of the misses I also have genuine concerns real concerns about where this athletic department stands in terms of preparing for the next step in college sports Revenue sharing everybody saw this coming everybody knew this was coming anybody like even an idiot like me could see that this was coming I didn't know what form it would take I didn't know what it would look like but you you can bet you're sweep behind that everybody a year ago could see where this was going maybe two years ago I think a lot of people fans knew that this is going to end up with pay paying the players it it was the most obvious thing in the universe you might not have known what like I didn't know what it was going to look like you didn't know what it was going to look like but we are also not highly paid athletic administrators at the college level who should have people around us who are going to guide us to figure out what this is going to look like you could you could have spent the last 18 months pretending like you would not eventually end up paying the players but if you did then all the other schools who looked at it and said you know what we're going to end up paying the players we better have a plan for this we better start figuring out how we're going to do this we better dive headlong into this thing so that when that time comes we are prepared for it pit didn't do that multiple people mult like I I've talked to multiple sources I I I feel relatively comfortable in saying this pit did not do that and pit is behind and they will be behind now I think they've made efforts to catch up I think they've made efforts to catch up on nil I think they've made efforts to catch up on on planning for Revenue sharing but I I I it's not enough entering this next stage of College athletics and it's it's happening fast it's changing fast okay I like just had this conversation on the message boards yesterday I generally am the type that when when when people start claiming about this is the this is the major changing point in college athletics it's this major thing or or anything not even just College athletics but a major change is coming it's all going to be different it's never going to look the same everything is changing everything we've known is going away all all this stuff I push back again I'm skeptical of that because that major giant seismic abrupt change never really seems to come if you take point a and point B and they're 40 years apart then yes it looks like a major seismic change but it took 40 years for that change or 30 years or 20 years or 10 years what we are in right now and what we are on the brink of is seismic abrupt change in college sports you know it and I know it and things that we would not have thought possible 10 years ago paying the players realignment Sports getting cut these things are all very real and I'm not saying that like we didn't think realignment was possible 10 years ago but this almost sort of seeming inevitability that there's going to be just two power conferences and everybody else is just going to be picking up whatever scraps they can get like this sport has undergone already undergone a major seismic change and it is not done these these tectonic plates are not done moving but they're going at 100 miles an hour and in five years this sport college football college athletics as a whole will look very very different to what from what it looks like right now let alone 5 years ago or 10 years ago or 20 years ago this is happening at an Abrupt rate and it is seismic and it is a major change and right now if you're any school if you are Alabama if you are Ohio State if you are Texas you need strong Visionary Forward Thinking leadership and if you are at pit if you are at Georgia Tech if you are at Minnesota if you are at Boston College if you are at West Virginia if you are at Washington State if you are at Arizona State if you are at that vast majority we always talk about that vast majority of schools that really makes up the bulk of FBS let's just say that need for strength Vision the ability to have Forward Thinking views Forward Thinking approach is twice as important four times as important 10 times as important as as it is at some of those other schools and those other schools are already acting like it's 10 times as important for them you need to have that so we come back to this question of why might Joan Gable not be flipping over tables to try to get a contract extension sign with Heather like uh why why might there be this impass between the two parties maybe and I and I can't say that this now at this point this is me just speculating okay most of what I've said up until this point over the last 28 minutes or so has been pretty well sourced this is me just speculating maybe she doesn't see the vision maybe she looks at the management of the athletic department over the last seven years looks at sort of the general direction of things in terms of financial management personnel management and where things seem to be heading and says I'm not sure I see the vision that I want to see the the strength that I want to see in leadership um to guide this athletic department and by extension this University into the next era of college sports and again that's me speculating but I think when you consider all this and and I think we probably could talk a lot longer about some of these things and and like I say we got a long post on the message boards on pan.com about some you know additional issues finances and management and things like that um but I think maybe maybe that's where the new Chancellor is coming from that she came in a year ago sat back and watched for a year and said I don't know why didn't pit do some of these things why isn't pit better prepared for some of these things why isn't pit moving forward so just a few thoughts I I I like I say I feel like um there are 10 other things I would talk about here there are 10 other things I would say uh and and 10 other things that certainly we have discussed on the message Wars we've already released this is like our longest morning pit of the week so there you go you got a half hour of pontificating and and general thoughts on the uh state of pit Athletics so I don't know let me know what you think uh get in the comments on here on youtube.com/ pancom post on the message boards at panther.com or on Twitter at Panther Lair I'd like to hear from you and hear what you think uh I I suspect the next 48 hours will be really interesting and then thank God we have football so we got that to look forward to don't forget we have the mailbag tomorrow if you have any questions go to the between Fifth and Forbes message board at panther.com let us hear what you're thinking and what you're uh talking about what you what you want to ask questions about we'd love to to hear from you and um yeah don't forget to like this video And subscribe youtube.com/ pancom thanks so much for tuning in today hope you've had a great week so far it's Thursday folks we're almost to the weekend we're almost to the game day so looking forward to that for sure have a great Thursday we'll catch up with you tomorrow with the morning pit mailbag right here on youtube.com/ pancom