The coronavirus has forced Pitt coaches and most of their colleagues across the U.S. to work from home.
But athletic director Heather Lyke knows football coach Pat Narduzzi isn’t sleeping in.
She said she received a recent text message from Narduzzi at 6:15 a.m., detailing the tasks performed by each member of his staff the previous day.
“It was fascinating. I really enjoyed reading it,” she said. “It gave me a sense of what everybody was working on, broke down this film, studied this, called these recruits, studied kick coverage.
“From every coach from every area. Recruiting, video, operations.
“Narduzzi is not out playing bocce in the backyard.”
But she added, “He might be at night.”
Money matters
Lyke said it’s too early to accurately gauge the economic impact at Pitt after the NCAA reduced its distribution to Division I schools from $600 million to $225 million because of the cancellation of winter and spring tournaments.
“We are still gathering a whole lot of data and numbers,” she said “We will adapt how we need to adapt in many ways.
“The ACC revenue is going to be solid and where we expect it to be.”
Some expenditures have been eliminated by the coronavirus shutdown, especially those involving travel to games and conferences, she said.
Salary cuts within the athletic department haven’t been discussed, she said.
Seniors’ plans
Pitt has only four spring sports — baseball, softball and men’s and women’s outdoor track and field — so the shutdown’s immediate impact on the department is less than at other schools.
The NCAA will return the lost year of eligibility to student-athletes, but individual schools and conferences can determine how much financial aid, if any, to offer athletes in their final year of eligibility.
Pitt has 21 seniors in spring sports, and Lyke said administrators and coaches are talking to them about their future plans.
“Many of them have other pursuits,” she said. “Many of them have academic or career plans or postgraduate plans.”
Victory Heights update
Lyke said the pandemic might not affect progress toward the Victory Heights facility improvement project on the upper campus. But plans are on hold, she said, “as you can respect and expect.”
She said the project received 15 major gifts from donors in 16 weeks. Groundbreaking is not planned until the summer of 2021.
