PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – As a junior leader on the Michigan softball team, Jenny Allard noticed an incoming freshman from Canton. Noted she had leadership abilities and would become the captain of the first Wolverines team to win the Big Ten championship. Allard would follow the career of Heather Lyke and now Lyke is her boss as the Panthers fourth softball coach.
“She just was a great teammate, a great player,” Allard said of Lyke. “There was just a respect we had as teammates. You watch her career at different stops and I’ve been following it here at Pitt. I knew what she was going to do here.”
Since Lyke came to Pitt major turnarounds in the men’s and women’s soccer programs, continued growth of volleyball to a national power, improvement in wrestling and football and facility improvements like nothing the university has seen before. None of this surprised Allard.
It wasn’t the first time Lyke attempted to hire Allard, she tried twice before and was turned down. Lyke joked during an introductory news conference on Wednesday it would either be ‘third time’s the charm’ or ‘three strikes and you’re out’. The six-year Pitt AD believes she didn’t swing and miss adding her college teammate.
Starting as an assistant at Iowa, Allard built a Hall of Fame career at Harvard University. Over 28 seasons, she won 688 games, nine Ivy League titles, is the Ivy League’s all-time winningest coach and eight times led the Crimson to the NCAA Tournament. She was inducted to the National Fastpitch Coaches Association Hall of Fame last year.
Lyke admired her from the first time they met in Ann Arbor when Allard won Big Ten Player of the Year as a pitcher, third baseman and first baseman. She called Allard ‘the standard’ as a player and now is doing so as a head coach. Work ethic, coaching for the right reasons, high expectations and results mark Allard’s career as Lyke said it is the right time now to make this happen and Allard agreed.
“I thought we could work together well,” Allard said. “I know what she expects. I know what it’s about.”
Expectations are high, a program that hasn’t had a winning season since 2018 and lost 134 games over the last five seasons, is now expected to become a national contender in one of the toughest conferences in college sports. Allard is embracing the challenge and believes she has an advocate in her old teammate.
“To have an athletic director who’s played the sport I’m coaching, that’s huge,” Allard said. “When I say we need this on the field, she knows what’s that about. We can speak that language and understand.”
“I think that’s what our relationship has been about. I’m thrilled to get after it.”