On Nov. 14, it was announced West Virginia University would be parting ways with Director of Athletics Shane Lyons. On Monday, Lyons spoke with Hoppy Kercheval of WV MetroNews about his departure, his relationship with President Gee, and explained decisions made later in his tenure.
“It was a complete surprise,” Lyons said of the decision made by Gee to let him go. “Two weeks earlier, I have a text message [from Gee] saying, ‘I know there’s a lot of pressure surrounding us, meaning he and I with the football program and I wouldn’t want to be in the foxhole with anybody but you.’”
Lyons would be let go amid a struggling football program, whom he gave a contract extension to, and which has underperformed since current head coach Neal Brown took over.
“I wanted to see what his (Gee’s) issue was as to say why a change,” Lyons said. “It boils down to the football situation. A lot of heat was surrounding our football program at that time. I look at it that I’m the scapegoat. The big thing is about the contract extension of Neal Brown.”
Lyons said the extension of Brown came after Brown had shown signs of improving the program. Lyons said there was pressure from Brown’s name being offered up for multiple head coach vacancies in the SEC, and he made the decision to extend Brown.
“Go back to 2020 and Neal (Brown) had been here two years. I get it, his record was .500 at the time, but I looked at the first two years and the trajectory of the program — where it was heading, and it was heading in the right direction,” Lyons said of his decision to extend Brown. “The culture was right, the student-athletes, the type of recruiting, everything that was happening in that program was heading in the right direction.”
“His name had come up for a couple jobs — Auburn and South Carolina,” Lyons said. “So, as an athletic director you start juggling this to say, so what if he wins the next year. If he wins the next year his buyout was $1.5 to $2 million which is not much in our business. My thinking was we need to increase his buyout if he ends up leaving to close to $5 million which we ended up doing. But in turn, they negotiated on their side to say well if he stays, and you fire him then you owe a certain amount which is 100% of his contract.”
Lyons said this decision was not made solely by him, but was approved at a university level as well, including Gee among others.
“That’s just not a Shane Lyons decision or an athletic director’s decision,” Lyons said. “This was several backs-and-forths and President Gee was involved, and Rob Alsop was involved and ultimately the chairman of the board Dave Alvarez signed off. It’s not done in a vacuum that Shane Lyons did this deal on his own. These types of deals and these types of contracts especially with a high-profile football coach, it’s done in collaboration with other individuals.”
Lyons said another reason Gee cited for the change was due to name, image, and likeness, (NIL) along with the athletic department’s involvement with the Country Roads Trust.
The Country Roads Trust is a private group meant to give NIL opportunities to student athletes, a place Lyons said the athletic department can only be involved in, to an extent.
“Some of the discussion, I asked President Gee why this change, why are we making this change,” Lyons said. “One thing came up was about the trust. [Gee said], Well, we’re not aggressive enough in name, image, and likeness. I tried to explain to him we are as aggressive as we can be without crossing a line in order to protect ourselves of getting involved in Title IX issues.”
“We’re involved as much as we can be as a department without crossing a line to saying, dollar for dollar for male and female student athletes and person to person the number of male and female,” Lyons said. “The trust wants us to be more involved in the fundraising and they want us to be more involved in a variety of different areas that we just can’t be… I was not going to cross the line in order to jeopardize the integrity of the department.”
Another reason given to Lyons by Gee was about the transfer portal. Lyons said he was confused why that was an issue as he said the athletic department has no bearing on what coaches do with the portal.
“Something else that came up and it didn’t make a whole lot of sense in the conversation was about the transfer portal. Well, the transfer portal is not an athletic director’s responsibility. It’s our coaches and the assistant coaches who recruit from the portal,” Lyons said.
[Gee said], ‘well we don’t think we’ve used the portal well enough.’ Well, I just saw last night watching the [men’s] basketball game that Coach [Bob] Huggins used the portal pretty well,” Lyons said. “We’re going to lose some kids to the portal, we’re going to gain some kids from the portal. That didn’t make a whole lot of sense when that (the portal) was brought up in the discussion.”
Moving forward, Lyons said he still had faith in the job Brown was doing. Lyons said he felt Brown was in “year two” of his work and that he was the correct hire for WVU to make.
“I felt strongly when I was athletic director that he had not lost this team,” Lyons said. “Is it where we need to be, the answer’s no. Did they meet our expectations, no. Did they meet Neal Brown’s expectations, no.”
“The first couple of years, what Neal Brown took over and the players he had the first couple years plus adding COVID in there, I honestly look at this as year two for Neal Brown not year four, year two.”
Lyons said if West Virginia was going to make a coaching change, they would be set back years rather than sticking with Brown who Lyons feels is on the verge of winning.
“He’s constantly building this thing and you make a coaching change; you take three years backwards steps. You’re not moving forward, you’re going backwards,” Lyons said. “You’re going to lose kids to the portal, you’re going to lose a very good recruiting class that he has right now, and he may lose some of those because of the continued talk about him being fired. That doesn’t help the situation at all.”
“Do I think that he deserves a chance, that’s not my decision. But if I was still sitting in this chair today, I think yeah,” Lyons said. “I think he checks every box that we’re looking for in a head coach. Unfortunately, the big box is, he needs to win more football games and I believe that’s coming in the future.”
As for that future, Lyons there was a distinct change in loyalty at the end, and that he will be bitter towards Gee and current Interim Director of Athletics Rob Alsop.
“I’m disappointed with the loyalty to some people, there’ll be bitterness there. They (Gee and Alsop) called themselves friends. And to blindside in this regard, that’s not the way I do business. To my knowledge, the board was not one who made this decision. I think this decision was made from a campus level and was taken to the board.”
Lyons said he still has many relationships with people at WVU and will continue to root for them from afar, as he accepted a position at the University of Alabama. Lyons also said the work he did for WVU will not go unnoticed.
“You have a relationship with the coaches and student athletes, and I want to see them perform at a very high level,” Lyons said. “My mark will always be here. I built roughly $200 million of facilities. Those things aren’t going away, that’s only going to help West Virginia in the future. I think you’ll look back and say Shane Lyons left his mark here in a very, very positive way.”
