A Busy Three Months
April 22, 2015 10:02 AM | General
West Virginia University director of athletics Shane Lyons will regularly offer his views on different topics related to Mountaineer sports and intercollegiate athletics in general. All of his posts, along with links to related content, will be available on WVUsports.com.It has certainly been an eventful three months since my first day on the job back in February.
I watched men’s basketball’s exciting victory over Kansas here at the Coliseum on February 16 and then in early March we hired Reed Sunahara to lead the volleyball program. We opened football’s new team room at the Puskar Center, we saw Jon Hammond lead rifle to its third straight NCAA title (and 17th overall) and Zeke Moisey advance to the podium at the 2015 NCAA Wrestling Championships in helping the Mountaineers to their first top-20 finish at nationals in 10 years.
Men’s basketball returned to the NCAA Tournament “Sweet 16” for the sixth time since 1998, and the third time under Bob Huggins; we hosted an NCAA women’s gymnastics regional here in Morgantown and the women’s basketball team played in front of an impressive 8,403 fans down in Charleston in the Women’s NIT championship game against UCLA.
More recently, we opened a beautiful, new ballpark for our baseball team and despite many obstacles, including a construction site that is still ongoing, our staff pulled together and in a true team effort made it a successful weekend with nearly 7,000 fans showing up for a three-game weekend series against Butler.
And just last weekend, we enjoyed an outstanding two days down at The Greenbrier with the football team’s practices at the New Orleans Saints’ impressive new AdvoCare Performance Center and the 30th annual spring gala to support the West Virginia University Mary Babb Randolph Cancer Center on Saturday night.
In the meantime, I have had an opportunity to visit with some of our great supporters and I look forward to meeting many more of you in the coming months when we begin traveling for Mountaineer Athletic Club functions, beginning April 27 when we are in Charleston for our annual scholarship dinner.
Other upcoming MAC events include: Parkersburg Caravan (April 28), Wheeling Caravan (May 13), Martinsburg Caravan (May 14), Princeton Caravan (May 19), Beckley Caravan (May 20), WVU Classic in Charleston (May 28-29), Morgantown Caravan (June 3) and WVU Classic at Pete Dye Golf Club (June 7-8).
Also, we hope to see you in Morgantown this Saturday for our annual Gold-Blue Spring Game at Milan Puskar Stadium, with the proceeds from the game benefitting the WVU Children’s Hospital.
The momentum we have right now is extremely encouraging, and I look forward to even greater things down the road as we continue to build a strong intercollegiate athletic department that our fans expect and deserve.
I will check back with you in May.
Until then, Let’s Go Mountaineers!
SWIM: What it Means to Represent West Virginia
Wednesday, April 29
SWIM: What it Means to Become a Mountaineer
Wednesday, April 29
Gold-Blue Spring Festival Fan Recap
Sunday, April 19
John Neider | April 18
Saturday, April 18
