New Athletic Director Oliver Luck starts job with busy summer

Oliver Luck's office is fitted with only the bare essentials.

He has a clock that dings at each hour's passing. His Blackberry, perched closely to the left of him, sounds off nearly once a minute it seems.

He has a coffee pot on a side table, a comfortable black chair behind a bulky wooden computer desk and a conference-sized table with eight blue leather chairs tucked under its edges.

West Virginia University's new athletic director took over the office from long-time athletic director Ed Pastilong July 1. But, Luck hasn't had much time to fully adorn his office just yet.

That's what he expected, though.

"I had a pretty good idea of what I was getting into," Luck said after closing his office door following a quick word with his secretary. "It's definitely busy, but I think it's a good busy."

Luck, the former owner and general manager of Major League Soccer's Houston Dynamo, has spent much of his summer in Morgantown.

He's rarely had a day to relax.

In less than two months, Luck has dealt with major conference realignment talks, volleyball coach Veronica Hammersmith's abrupt retirement, men's basketball coach Bob Huggins' ribs injury and the alleged violations from the NCAA on the football program.

Luck hired his first coach last Monday when he introduced former Virginia assistant Jill Kramer as the Mountaineers' new volleyball coach.

"It was a difficult time to hire a volleyball coach so close to the season," he said. "It was a unanimous decision. Her energy is really what we need."

Earlier this week, Luck hired Keli Cunningham to a new athletic department position – associate athletic director for governance and compliance. That hire allowed assistant athletic director for compliance Patrick Hairston to work solely with the University's general counsel in preparing a response to the NCAA's Notice of Allegations.

"He will be a major player in putting this defense together," Luck said. "That created something of a vacuum in the compliance office."

Luck said WVU tried to hire Cunningham before and came well recommended. He also said Hairston will remain with the athletic department following the NCAA hearing.

"We want him to be part of our larger team here," Luck said.

He is also in the process of hiring an associate athletic director for finance and administration to replace Russ Sharp who died earlier this year.

"We've gotten some great candidates," he said. "It's refreshing to see that there are people who want to come and work for WVU and that we have a great buzz going for us."

With this summer's stresses, Luck hasn't had time to fully access the athletic department yet. He said it will take a while.

"I haven't had the time to look into everything yet, not even close," he said. "What I don't want to do is take a cursory look at everything and be a mile wide and an inch thick."

Instead, Luck said he would rather take a systematic look at a certain aspect of the athletic department for an extended period of time to better understand it, compare it to peer institutions like Virginia Tech, Penn State and Maryland and going from there.

Luck is doing just that with the decision WVU made in 2003 to cut five varsity sports.

"I've gotten some of the documents out of the archives and have begun to look at the thought process that went into the decision," Luck said. "I'm trying to understand what that was all about, because I learned about it mostly from the newspapers."

He said adding sports is something WVU needs to look into in the near future.

"It's really about the type of student you can bring to campus because you have those sports," Luck said. "That's important."

Luck and his staff have started the process of developing a Coliseum Complex master plan, which will develop ways to keep WVU's athletic facilities competitive with other programs across the country and keep revenue streams strong.

"The challenge to a certain degree is to improve on some of the operational things, but at the same time you have to think about the big picture and where we're going to be in 20 years," Luck said. "You always want to improve. You never want to stay stagnate."