Veteran athletics administrator Shane Lyons is returning to The University of Alabama as its Executive Deputy Director of Athletics while holding the designation of Chief Operating Officer, Director of Athletics Greg Byrne announced on Monday.
Lyons, who spent the last eight years as Director of Athletics and Associate Vice President at West Virginia, served as Deputy Director of Athletics for the Crimson Tide from 2011-15.
“Shane is a well-respected administrator in college athletics who brings a variety of experiences and wealth of knowledge to Alabama,” said Byrne. “We are thrilled to have Shane back in Tuscaloosa to join our executive leadership team.”
With 35 years of experience in athletics administration, the 2021 NACDA Athletics Director of the Year is recognized as a leader in the space having held positions at the national level as well as two NCAA Division I FBS institutions and two Division I conference offices.
“I want to thank Greg Byrne for this tremendous opportunity to return to The University of Alabama,” said Lyons. “I have great respect for Greg and Alabama Athletics, and I am looking forward to returning to Tuscaloosa. My previous time at Alabama provided me with great opportunities, and I am eager to join Greg’s team and help the Crimson Tide continue to have one of the best and most successful departments in the nation.”
While in Morgantown, Lyons lead a department of 18 varsity sports, 250 employees and approximately 500 student-athletes while serving on the President’s Executive Leadership Team. In 2021, as part of his Climbing Higher facilities master plan, he unveiled a complete overhaul of WVU football’s Milan Puskar Center and opened a new Olympic Sports Performance Center. Additionally, he oversaw the opening of a $45 million aquatic and track facility that benefits both WVU and the local community.
Under his watch, WVU implemented a Clinical and Sport Psychology unit with a full-time director and professional interns, added specialized learning assistants to the Student-Athlete Development unit and entered a partnership with WVU Medicine’s Neuroscience Department to assist in the training and recovery of student-athletes.
Academically, WVU athletics boasted a 3.22 overall GPA and had a department-high 361 student-athletes on the Big 12 Commissioner’s Honor Roll a season ago.
Lyons has been heavily involved in committees at both the national and conference levels, most recently serving as Chair of the Division I Council and as a member of the NCAA Transformation Committee, NCAA Constitutional Committee and NCAA Working Group on Transfers. He also served as Chair of the Division I Football Oversight Committee in 2021 and was a member of the committee from 2018-21. Other committee work includes Big 12 Athletic Directors Council, Big 12 Game Management and Officiating Subcommittee and Big 12 Administration, Finance and Budget Committee.
During his first tenure in Tuscaloosa, Lyons oversaw the budget and management of the day-to-day operations of the department while assisting with the vision and leadership of Alabama Athletics. He played a pivotal role in a historic renegotiation of Alabama’s multimedia rights agreement that started in 2014 and was involved in the hiring of head coaches and several significant capital projects totaling more than $85 million.
Prior to joining Alabama, Lyons spent 10 years as an associate commissioner at the Atlantic Coast Conference where he focused on conference-wide compliance and academic initiatives, providing direct assistance to the conference’s presidents, chancellors and athletics directors in situations dealing with NCAA regulatory matters. Lyons also served as the ACC’s human resource manager and was responsible for the administration, negotiation and mediation of the employee benefits program and managing the conference’s organizational policies and procedures. He was part of the senior administrative team for ACC events, including the football championship game, the men’s basketball tournament and men’s and women’s NCAA basketball events.
From 1998-2001, Lyons served as associate athletics director for compliance Texas Tech. During that time, he was responsible for the leadership, administration and implementation of a comprehensive NCAA compliance program with emphasis toward rules education and extensive monitoring systems. Additionally, Lyons served as oversight administrator for several of the Red Raiders’ athletics teams and had financial and operational supervision of the strength and conditioning, nutritional and sports medicine units.
Before joining Texas Tech, Lyons worked at the NCAA for almost 10 years as a senior membership services representative, where he was responsible for the oversight and coordination of rules and interpretations for the 25 membership service representatives and was the staff liaison to various NCAA standing committees.
Lyons began his career in college athletics in July 1988 as assistant commissioner of the Big South Conference, handling conference-wide compliance and championships.
A native of Parkersburg, West Virginia, and a graduate of Parkersburg High, Lyons was a standout basketball player for the Big Reds. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in sport management from West Virginia in 1987 and 1988, respectively.
Lyons, and his wife, Emily, a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, have two children, Cameron and Brooke. Cameron is a graduate student-athlete and a member of the football team at UNC Charlotte and Brooke is a sophomore at WVU.
**This information was acquired from a recent press release from Alabama Athletics.**
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Patrick Dowd is a Reporter for Touchdown Alabama Magazine. You can follow him on Twitter, via Pat_Dowd77
