FROM THE NEST | SUMMER 2026 | 31 unsettled, the transfer portal continues to impact roster stability and now there is five years of eligibility for every student-athlete. We need to be thoughtful and strategic about how we can position Lehigh to be even better within those parameters rather than just have these changes happen to us. Will there also be additional support for womenʼs athletics? Lehigh already has outstanding womenʼs athletic programs, has enjoyed sustained success in basketball and softball and weʼve seen championship teams across other programs. We want more of our women to be positioned to compete for championships while they continue to be exceptional academically. Nationally, many institutions that have had significant competitive success in womenʼs athletics are our academic peers. One of the first things that we did when I arrived was elevate womenʼs wrestling to varsity status. Thatʼs a credit to [Deputy Athletic Director] Sue Troyan as much as anyone. Sue was working on that for a long time, and had it really well- positioned. That was an important thing for Lehigh to do. How are you building out programs? What support will that take? From a philanthropic standpoint, our focus is going to be built on three primary pillars. One is going to be about building endowment around coaching. In athletics, we look at our coaches as our faculty, so making sure that we have the recurring income from endowment to help us be able to attract, develop and retain outstanding people is going to be critical to what we do. We need to advance the enhancement of our athletic facilities, so we need to make an investment to modernize the spaces in which we train and compete. The Goodman Campus is an amazing resource, and we need to create and leverage investment opportunities to make sure it stays an advantage to Lehigh. This means creating the conditions where our athletes can train in more modern ways with the modalities that they need, with the technology that they need, with the access to data and research around athletics that is going to differentiate us and create real advantages. Thatʼs where I go back to talking about integrating with the academics and working with the brilliant people on this campus who can help us actually enhance athletic performance. It is important for us to not just align with, but to integrate our athletics programs with the important and impactful research being performed across the university, and we need our facilities to be able to support that. The third is going to be in how we apply our resources to make sure we are providing outstanding experiences for our student-athletes. We need to evolve in a way that is both ambitious and true to who we are. With almost continuous changes to college athletics the past few years regarding name, image and likeness (NIL) deals and the transfer portal, where does Lehigh fit into it all? Student-athletes can profit off endorsement deals and sponsorships, although the university has opted out of revenue sharing with student-athletes along with the rest of the Patriot League and the entire Ivy League. Most Division I programs have opted in. “Weʼve got to figure out how we can leverage our differences,ˮ Murray H. Goodman Dean of Athletics Jeremy Gibson Pʼ28 said. “Part of how we do that is the value of a Lehigh education, the value of a Lehigh degree and pipelines with alumni and creating professional connections.ˮ As far as the transfer portal, Gibson said the athletic department hasnʼt seen much change in the number of transfers and the rate doesnʼt look “substantially differentˮ compared to the rest of the university. Gibson said student-athletes now have five years of eligibility and that may benefit Lehigh. Student- athletes can earn their degree at Lehigh in four years, he said, and still have a year of eligibility to play somewhere else and earn more NIL money. “These are human beings, so I donʼt want to frame it as just a conversation about student-athletes because each one of them has different motivations and goals,ˮ Gibson said.—Stephen Gross ATHLETICS NIL, the Transfer Portal and Lehigh SCAN TO VIEW A PHOTO ESSAY OF RECENT ATHLETICS ACHIEVEMENTS SCAN TO READ THE FULL CONVERSATION WITH GIBSON
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTA0OTQ5OA==