Athletic director Heather Lyke 'expects' to remain at Pitt after she was contacted by Michigan State
Pitt athletic director Heather Lyke said Friday she has been contacted by Michigan State about its opening for the same job, but she said she doesn’t expect to leave.
“There has (been contact),” she said before Pitt football’s Kickoff Luncheon at the Westin Pittsburgh. “I’m very happy at Pitt. I’m thrilled to work for Chancellor (Patrick) Gallagher. I expect to stay here and hope to make that arrangement work.”
Lyke, a native of Canton, Ohio, was hired in March 2017, to replace Scott Barnes, who left for Oregon State. She signed a new six-year contract a year later.
She served as athletic director at Eastern Michigan for four years before coming to Pitt and was at Ohio State from 1998-2013, where she was a member of the athletic department’s executive team. She also worked in sports administration at the NCAA and Cincinnati after attending Michigan, where she was a four-year letter winner on the softball team.
During her time at Pitt, she has hired new coaches for the men’s and women’s basketball teams, wrestling, softball and women’s soccer while extending football coach Pat Narduzzi’s contract seven years to 2024.
Also this year, Pitt women’s volleyball advanced to the NCAA Tournament Elite Eight and men’s soccer reached the NCAA College Cup, both unprecedented events. Wrestling finished 11th in the nation, and baseball was ranked as high as No. 14, its highest ranking in program history.
Pre-pandemic, however, Pitt discontinued its women’s tennis team.
She also has spearheaded the Victory Heights project on the upper campus that is projected to include a 3,500-seat facility for wrestling, volleyball and gymnastics, an indoor track and a sports performance area for 16 of Pitt’s 19 teams. Pitt hopes to break ground sometime in the summer 2022, and the goal is to open the facility in the fall of 2024.
Lyke reported in May that the first phase of Victory Heights is complete: the $16 million expansion of Petersen Sports Complex.
Jerry DiPaola is a TribLive reporter covering Pitt athletics since 2011. A Pittsburgh native, he joined the Trib in 1993, first as a copy editor and page designer in the sports department and later as the Pittsburgh Steelers reporter from 1994-2004. He can be reached at jdipaola@triblive.com.
Remove the ads from your TribLIVE reading experience but still support the journalists who create the content with TribLIVE Ad-Free.