What was it? A couple weeks ago, when there were questions about AD Lyke and Chancellor Gallagher, regarding their commitment to Pitt Athletics. Simpler times.
University of Pittsburgh Director of Athletics Heather Lyke announced today that Suzie McConnell-Serio will not return as the Panthers’ head women’s basketball coach.
McConnell-Serio recently completed her fifth season with the Panthers, compiling a 67-87 overall record and 22-58 ACC mark during that span.
McConnell-Serio was a surprising disaster as the women’s basketball coach. In that respect her firing wasn’t a shock.
But on the heels of getting rid of Kevin Stallings to reboot the men’s basketball program, the impetuous to make a change on the women’s side, would have seemed to have been put aside for the time being. To say nothing of making additional outlays in the budget for the buyout and hiring a new coach.
Apparently the money and the desire to make a change are there.
Lots of changes in the coaches within Pitt Athletics in the last few years. All the attention is on football and men’s basketball, but in the last two years Pitt has hired a new women’s gymnastics coach, men’s and women’s soccer and wrestling. And for the most part the new coaches have made noticeable progress very quickly.
I realize Pitt fans are conditioned to expect the AD to be a bumbling mess. And at the first sign of a problem default to that expectation. But maybe, just maybe, Heather Lyke actually knows what she is doing.
I think Pitt has found out the ACC is NOT the Big East…the competition is several levels above that league in ALL sports. Competing with the traditional ACC Southern powers who excel even in non revenue sports is a whole new ballgame.
Pitt has to raise the bar or risk being left behind…and the non revenue athletes are mostly true student athletes and but are still of great interest to fans and alums in these schools…(I remember when the NY Yankees stopped in Chapel Hill in the late 70’s and played an exhibition game with the Tarheels on the way home from spring training …it was a major event, well attended and covered by the local media and gave a huge boost to the baseball program there) being bad in these does impact admissions and alum intere$t.
Athletics in the ACC truly is a front porch that greatly impacts admissions and donations…kudos to AD Lykes for getting out the broom and trying to clean it up. In the US higher education is Big Business – about time Pitt started paying attention to the entire package.
H2P
