Exclusive: Baker, Gov. Morrisey on WVU’s Current Disparity Within Athletic Department

Even though the WVU baseball team appears set up to be a national contender for years to come, there’s something that’s completely out of their control that could derail the whole operation. Will West Virginia’s director of athletics Wren Baker ever have to decide to take from baseball, or any of the other “Olympic” sports, in the interest of helping football and men’s basketball?

It may never happen. Things may not come to that, even if that’s going on at other schools around the country. Ross Hodge did lead his team a postseason tournament title in his first year on the job. That’s certainly a step in the right direction, even if shy of the annual goal of Mountaineer basketball.

And while WVU football endured a 4-8 season in Rich Rodriguez’s return to Morgantown, big recruiting wins and an increased budget are providing optimism. It’s possible football and men’s basketball are both headed towards national contention in their own right.

Can Every West Virginia Team Can Win Simultaneously?

But what if they’re not? Baker had to address that “what if?” question as part of his annual spring press conference.

“I believe we don’t have to pick or choose,” said Baker as his response to a question about if the success of the rest of the athletic department is coming at the expense of football and men’s basketball, and if the top programs can flourish along side the others simultaneously.

Baker admitted that he understands an athletic department can’t be strong overall without winning football and men’s basketball teams, saying WVU does allocate most of the revenue sharing money to those programs, with baseball and women’s basketball receiving some to a lesser extent as well.

“I’ve not gotten to a point where I think we have to choose to downgrade or tier those other sports down to be successful in the top two.”

There’s Reason for Optimistic About the Future of WVU Football, Men’s Basketball

West Virginia Sports Now was then able to marry Baker’s recent comments with Governor Patrick Morrisey’s thoughts, obtained during an exclusive interview ahead of the WVU baseball competing in the school’s first-ever trip to the College Wold Series.

“I think you can always say, we’re one or two years in with some of these new coaches and I’m very optimistic about them. I think we got solid coaches and you don’t generally walk in in year one and turn everything around, but I think you’re going to see real improvement with the football team this year and the basketball team. It’s challenging to walk in at the 11th hour and have to put a whole team together. So I don’t think you can really judge the year one,” argued an optimistic Morrisey.

“At the same time, I’ll say this. WVU has an incredible tradition in both of these areas and we fell on some tough times, but there are the seeds for rebirth,” he added.

So enjoying the ride with WVU baseball, women’s basketball, soccer, rifle etc. is important, it’s also necessary to be conscious of the top two sports above all else. Time will now be the judge if football and men’s basketball can get to a point where this wouldn’t even be a discussion, because as Morrisey noted, they have both experienced an elite level of success in the past.

The pressure is now on Rodriguez and Hodge to match Steve Sabins, Mark Kellogg and their other fellow WVU head coaches.

For a related story, Wren Baker reveals the timeline for the football West Tower project and how it will impact the Mountaineers.