Pitt is winning this battle with Penn State: The two female AD’s, Heather Lyke vs. Sandy Barbour

... Lyke provides Pitt with some vision

Who will win the battle at Heinz Field this evening between the Pitt Panthers and Penn State Nittany Lions? That could be a challenge for both teams. However, in the Pitt-Penn State saga, one university has taken a significant lead in one particular area: Athletic Leadership.

In that area, the University of Pittsburgh made a great hire in Heather Lyke in March 2017. She inherited a veritable mess caused by her two predecessors, Scott Barnes and Steve Pedersen, and she has been required to make some tough decisions. However, she has shown some tenacity in demonstrating leadership in shaking up a department that needed it.

Sandy Barbour, conversely, hired by Penn State in 2014, cannot seem to outrun the previous controversies that she created in her tenure as A.D. at the University of California-Berkeley. The Daily Collegian, the student newspaper at Penn State, succinctly summarized the problems that have arisen in the past six months with Barbour’s lack of leadership at Cal.

“Penn State athletic director Sandy Barbour is facing claims from Olympic gold medalist, now civil rights lawyer Nancy Hogshead-Makar, that UC Berkeley's adherence to Title IX under Barbour was one of the worst in the country.

“Barbour, having served as Cal’s athletic director from 2004 to 2014, is already the subject of heavy scrutiny after former UC Berkeley swimmer Jenna Rais alleged that Barbour failed to address her claim that she was sexually assaulted by Cal staff member Mohamed Muqtar.”

In addition, the major issue now facing Penn State athletics is the aging football facility, Beaver Stadium. Barbour has presented a plan to the public to improve facilities as a whole, but unlike Lyke, who is an omnipresent voice and face of the department in the Pittsburgh media, Barbour has really done little to start raising the extraordinary amounts of money that will be necessary to construct new facilities.

Some background may help explain why Pitt has made significant strides in that direction.

Heather Lyke

Lyke has an interesting background, and with her Big Ten ties and successful history building a football stadium, she would have been an excellent candidate at Penn State.

Lyke was a scholarship softball player at the University of Michigan, where she became an All-American, and after graduating she earned a law degree at the University of Akron, she worked for the NCAA. She has worked at the University of Cincinnati, and spent 15 years at Ohio State before taking the A.D. position at Central Michigan.

Her tenure was only three years, but her bio lists some of those accomplishments. “During her tenure, the Eagles captured 16 MAC team championships, garnered 17 MAC Coach of the Year awards and had nearly 400 MAC All-Academic honorees. For the first time in school history, Eastern Michigan was honored with the MAC's prestigious Cartwright Award for all-around athletic department excellence (2013-14) and the Jacoby Award for female athletic excellence (2014-15).”

It also lists “A revitalized football program, on the field and in the stands,” “Record-breaking academic success,” “High impact fund-raising initiatives,” “National recognition for athletic department efficiency and effectiveness,” and “Enhanced Eastern Michigan facilities.”

These are all areas in which Barbour struggled at Cal, which admittedly is a much larger school.

Problems at Pitt

The University of Pittsburgh athletic programs have struggled in some high profile areas in recent years, and Lyke had to address them immediately. As Jerry DiPaola wrote for the Tribune-Review, “In Lyke’s 17 months on the job, seven coaches and trainer Tony Salesi, who had been at Pitt for more than three decades, have either retired or been fired. She has hired seven coaches … “

When asked if change is good, she replied, “When it’s needed, yes.”

This included firing the men’s and women’s basketball coaches. Kevin Stallings had a tumultuous two years as men’s coach, and he was dismissed after two seasons. Women’s coach Suzie McConnell-Serio, a college All-American and former WNBA coach, was fired after compiling an ACC record of 22-58 in her five seasons.

The list goes on, but she hired Jeff Capel, an assistant to Coach Mike Krzyzewski at Duke for seven years, the past four as associated head coach. She was criticized briefly when Danny Hurley turned her down, but Capel is probably a much bigger catch.

Future challenges

Lyke must confront other challenges as well, such as facilities and particularly the football program. Tonight, Heinz Field will be packed and rocking, but that will probably be the only time all season — and many of those fans will be rooting for Pitt’s opponent. In short, the Panthers have difficulty with Heinz Field as their home venue.

Perhaps Lyke can address this. Playing off campus has not worked for them. They can talk all they want about how historic the location is, but without being able to fill it — 35,000 fans is an embarrassment — they cannot have credulity as a top football power. I have no idea what the answer is there, but she has been a visionary, and that gives Pitt fans hope.

As for men’s basketball, the return to the days of Ben Howland-Jamie Dixon basketball will take time. However, the hiring of Capel should give them hope.

Comparison of Lyke and Barbour

The major differences between the two AD’s are their persona and public appearances. In an interview with Andrew Stockley of WTAE-TV in Pittsburgh, Like comes off as articulate, upbeat, charismatic, intelligent — the type of persona that you want for a person representing the athletic department. This reflects the fact that she served as a color commentator for Big Ten softball on the conference’s network. This is certainly what you need with an A.D.

In looking at a video of Barbour explaining what the renovations at Beaver Stadium would entail, the contrast is obvious. Barbour talks like a person who struggled through introductory public speaking in college, stuttering, taking her eyes off the audience and looking down — in short, she was saying that she never wanted to be in this position. She may be an able administrator in many ways, but she has no public persona.

That goes back to the major problem with Barbour.

Can she lead a $100 million fundraising campaign?

The need to upgrade Beaver Stadium is obvious for anyone who has attended a game recently. It is somewhat antiquated today, and that is going to take money. Barbour has presented a plan devised by an architectural company, but she has no clue how to raise that much money.

In addition, the campaign that they started will include other areas prior to addressing the football facility. It will take 20 years, and the initial number being bandied about is $120 million. To do that, you need what Lyke bragged about in her tenure at Central Michigan: High impact fund-raising. After watching video of Like in action, you can see her leading such an effort. After watching video of Barbour, you realize that Penn State may need another leader to take control of that quest.

However, the major problem facing Barbour now is her past, and her transgressions at Cal are a major concern.

Cal tenure was tumultuous

In October of 2013, an editorial board of a newspaper in California recommended that Barbour “start looking for another job” if the grades of the football team do not improve significantly in the near future.

One of the paper’s columnists made the question more succinct: “How does Sandy Barbour still have her job?” His name is Jon Wilkner and he asked two questions: “Is she wholly, partly or not-at-all to blame for the budget mess? For the exorbitant cost of the facility upgrades and the flawed financing model behind the projects?”

Then he goes further: “What about the humiliating graduation rates and Academic Progress Rate scores?” The graduation rate of the football team was among the worst in the country among Div. I schools during her tenure, and Cal-Berkley brags about its ranking as one of the top public universities in the U.S. To make matters worse, she oversaw a financing project for the football stadium that was horrible, at best. Wilkner writes, “[T]he price tag is stunning: Cal spent more on facility upgrades ($474 million) than any school in the history of collegiate athletics.”

So, she was forced out at Cal, but somehow, new PSU President Eric Barron found something he liked about Barbour. Not sure what that was, but the hire has come a a cost. With all of the controversy of the previous administrators, one of the A.D.’s pleaded guilty and went to jail in the Sandusky imbroglio, Barron needed someone with integrity. He did not get that with Barbour.

2018 adds scandals
As the Daily Collegian article noted, Barbour has problems from her Cal tenure in two instances. David Jones of the Patriot-News in Harrisburg reported in May that the release of a long-time employee had cast a pall over Barbour’s tenure there. “The firing of a well-known athletic department administrator by the University of California-Berkeley over sexual assault accusations has brought into focus the decade-long tenure there of Penn State athletic director Sandy Barbour and what she may have known about the man's conduct,” he wrote.

The employee was identified in an Outside the Lines investigation by ESPN. It alleged, and Cal’s own investigation agreed, that from 1999 to 2011 the man had harassed and sexually assaulted Cal female athletes. He was fired on May 11.

According to Jones’ story, the ESPN investigation found that “An academic advisor twice contacted Cal athletic department officials and warned of [emmployee Mohamed] Muqtar's inappropriate behavior in 2006 and 2007. And in 2010, former Cal swimmer Jenna Rais (2001-04) sent an email to then-Cal AD Barbour and then-Cal chancellor Robert Birgeneau alleging harassment by Muqtar. “

That is how Barbour was involved, and she has refused to discuss the situation.

Then she had to face the reality that the former Cal athlete had alleged that Barbour presided over a program that violated Title IX norms about female participation in sports that are required by the federal government guidelines.

Thus, the question has to be, how does Sandy Barbour still have her job at Penn State?

Conclusion

From what has been written here, the case os clear: Pitt has a promising A.D. who has the potential to lead the athletic program into the future, and Penn State has a seriously compromised A.D. who should not have been hired in the first place.

In this area, the Panthers have the upper hand, but Lyke has serious programs to address. While Penn State has some great athletic programs — women’s volleyball and men’s wrestling come to mind as tops in the country — Pitt has problems that need to be addressed in many areas. The good part is that Pitt should have some optimism.Having Barbour oversee the hugely expensive renovation of Beaver Stadium should be a concern for any PSU fan.