General

Heather Lyke Finalist for Sports Business Journal Athletic Director of the Year

PITTSBURGH—University of Pittsburgh Director of Athletics Heather Lyke has been named a finalist for the prestigious Sports Business Journal Athletic Director of the Year award.
 
The publication revealed the six finalists this week. Lyke is joined by Josh Brooks (Georgia), Troy Dannen (Tulane), Jamie Pollard (Iowa State), Danny White (Tennessee) and J.D. Wicker (San Diego State).
 
The winner will be unveiled at the Sports Business Awards held on May 24 at the New York Marriott Marquis Times Square in New York City.
 
Pitt Athletics is enjoying a remarkable ascension under the direction of Lyke, who is concluding her sixth year at the University.
 
Pitt finished this past fall ranking an impressive sixth in the LEARFIELD Directors' Cup standings, a national measuring stick for overall athletic department competitive success.
 
The Panthers' fall sports programs combined to score 309 points, already an unprecedented overall total for Pitt. This lofty ranking was achieved while competing in the ultra-competitive Atlantic Coast Conference, which led all leagues with four programs in the Directors' Cup Top 10.
 
The fall sports highlights included:
 
  • Pitt's men's cross country team being represented at the NCAA Championships for the first time since 1994 with Luke Henseler and Jack Miller earning all-region honors to qualify.
     
  • Women's soccer earning its first-ever NCAA Tournament berth, advancing all the way to the Sweet 16.
     
  • Men's soccer advancing to the College Cup for the second time in three seasons. 
     
  • Pitt volleyball earning a berth in its second consecutive Final Four, firmly establishing the Panthers as a national power. 
     
  • Pitt football closing out the fall season with a pulsating victory over UCLA in the Sun Bowl, earning a second consecutive Top 25 finish for the first time in nearly 40 years.

The winter seasons continued to produce excitement with men's basketball earning its first NCAA Tournament berth since 2016, Ilse Steigenga earning first-team All-America honors in the women's long jump, wrestling sending six qualifiers to this week's NCAA Wrestling Championships and men's swimming and diving qualifying 12 competitors for NCAAs, the program's most in more than two decades.
 
The Panthers continue to score victories off the field as well. Pitt Athletics ranked ninth in NCAA Division I—and first among Power Five institutions—in community service efforts during the 2021-22 academic year. Five Pitt programs ranked in the top five of their respective sport, including football, rated No. 1 nationwide.

Enthusiasm is also being generated through ambitious capital projects, including "Victory Heights," a series of state-of-the-art athletics facilities that will provide 16 of Pitt's 19 teams with national-caliber competition, training, sports performance and sports medicine facilities.
 
Construction has already begun on a 3,000-seat arena for gymnastics, volleyball and wrestling, and a sports performance center that will serve 16 teams as well as the Spirit Squads.