Pitt fires athletic director ahead of expiring contract

The Panthers are searching for new leadership of its athletic department. Pitt chancellor Joan Gabel announced on Monday that athletic director Heather Lyke has been fired ahead of her contract expiring.

In Gabel’s announcement, she noted Lyke’s leadership while citing the ever-changing landscape of college athletics and needing a fresh start.

A recent story from ABC 27 detailed Lyke’s departure from the University of Pittsburgh. Below is an excerpt from the ABC 27 story.

“We need a new vision and a new leader of our athletics department,” Gabel said in a statement.

Lyke arrived at Pitt in 2017 and helped the Panthers start to find their footing in the Atlantic Coast Conference after treading water in their initial years after leaving the Big East.

The football program won its first ACC title in 2021 and her decision to hire Jeff Capel as the men’s basketball coach in 2018 helped bring that program back to life. The women’s volleyball team has become a national power and the men’s soccer team reached the College Cup twice, 2020 and 2022.

Lyke’s most ambitious project was “Victory Heights,” a $240 million facility currently under construction next to the Petersen Events Center. When completed, Victory Heights will serve as the home for 16 of Pitt’s 19 intercollegiate programs and will accommodate seating for up to 3,000 for volleyball, wrestling and gymnastics.

The building, launched in 2020 just before the COVID-19 pandemic, is scheduled to open in the fall of 2025.

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Lyke, however, will not be around to see her vision come to fruition. She was in the final months of a contract that ran through 2024 but had explored other options lately, most recently when she was a finalist for the athletic director job at Northwestern.

To read the full story from ABC 27, click here.