MORGANTOWN — It didn’t take long for West Virginia’s new vice president and director of intercollegiate athletics to get involved in promoting the school’s name, image and likeness team.
Roughly a day after his hiring was announced, Wren Baker was featured in a video posted to the organization’s social media accounts asking Mountaineer fans to support Country Roads Trust.
“I think everybody understands the importance of name, image and likeness in college athletics. It’s here to stay and Wren truly understands that,” Country Roads Trust general manager and Chief Operating Officer Stephen Ford said Friday in a phone interview with HD Media. “He’s going to get behind us and do everything within the guidelines and within the law of the NCAA to help us.”
Baker is known as a successful fundraiser, having set record marks at North Texas, where he comes to WVU from and had served as athletic director since 2016, as well as at his previous two stops at Missouri and Memphis.
WVU President Gordon Gee said when he hired Baker the university wanted somebody who understood the changes in intercollegiate athletics, including the transfer portal and managing NIL. He believes Baker meets those needs.
“Name, image and likeness is about opportunities,” Baker said Monday at his introductory news conference at the Milan Puskar Center. “I think it’s important that we embrace that, that we promote that. I don’t think it has to come at the expense of other things that we’re trying to do, but in the environment we’re in today, that’s a very important component to a healthy athletic program.”
The Light the Tower Collective was organized by North Texas booster Don Lovelace and Rick Villarreal — the school’s former athletic director — earlier this year to provide NIL opportunities for Mean Green athletes, and Baker said working with that organization has helped prepare him for his new role, adding that a Texas state law would have prohibited him from doing a video similar to the one he did last week for WVU.
“I see [Country Roads Trust] as an asset and a tool and somebody we need to have a relationship with. Not one that violates the rules, but one that is healthy and does everything it can to provide those opportunities for student-athletes within the rules,” Baker said.
“What I think’s important is that everybody recognizes and knows that the [Mountaineer Athletic Club] is important, other projects we’re doing is important, other areas of the university is important, but those NIL opportunities are important. It’s something that we need all of Mountaineer nation to embrace.”
Country Roads Trust was co-founded by Ken Kendrick and Oliver Luck — WVU’s former athletic director — roughly 11 months ago to arrange NIL opportunities for WVU athletes and to accept contributions from Mountaineer supporters.
Baker said he’s known Luck “for a long time,” because of Luck’s reputation and career in the sports industry, but added the two haven’t spent a lot of time together.
“[Baker’s] extremely talented, having led North Texas into the American Athletic Conference as well as to record fundraising drives and athletic successes,” Luck said in a news release welcoming the new athletic director.
“Country Roads Trust is excited about creating a great relationship. Wren is terrific at external and fundraising processes, and we know we’ll have a productive relationship that will benefit all WVU student-athletes.”
Ford said he and the Trust were not consulted during Baker’s hiring. Gee said during the introductory news conference he, Luck and vice president for strategic initiatives Rob Alsop, who is serving as interim athletic director, had Zoom interviews with seven or eight candidates. Country Roads Trust is a stand-alone entity, independent of WVU.
Country Roads Trust is still a fairly new organization and Ford says, “We’re kind of building the plane as we’re flying it,” but it has seen increased support within the last week.
Baker was announced as WVU’s new athletic director Nov. 30. Later that night, the Mountaineers also announced Neal Brown would remain as football coach.
On Thursday alone, Country Roads Trust eclipsed $50,000 in annual memberships. Ford said Friday morning during the phone interview with HD Media he had already received four calls that day from people wanting to donate more than what they offered for memberships. By Friday night, the Trust had reached $85,000 in additional annual memberships, it announced on social media.
“I’ll be completely transparent about this, I think it’s a combination of Wren coming in — it’s new blood, new ideas — but it’s also a combination of Neal getting another year, which I’m excited about,” Ford said. “I think the fan base, and you look at social media and you’ve got a very small percentage of our fan base on social media who talk about this with coaching staff and contracts, so on and so forth. Let’s put all that aside, and how about let’s help, let’s be the change that this football program needs. Because starting Monday when the transfer portal opens up, that’s going to be massive.
“We’re going to help Neal with whatever he needs. He has our support moving forward one million percent.”
Baker takes over as athletic director for Shane Lyons, who the school announced it had parted ways with on Nov. 14. In an interview last week with MetroNews’ Hoppy Kercheval, Lyons said he believes NIL was part of the reason he was fired — “Based on the discussions with president Gee, I think he thought we need to be more aggressive in that area,” Lyons said in the interview.
Lyons said he supports NIL and that he talked about the Trust at speaking engagements as a possible place for people to donate, but said he “was not going to cross the line in order to jeopardize the integrity of the department and federal funding.”
“I tried to explain to [Gee] we’re as aggressive as we can be without crossing the line in order to protect ourselves in getting involved in Title IX issues. The Trust has come up since it started, that the athletic department needs to be more involved,” Lyons said in the interview.
“We’re involved as much as we can be as a department without crossing a line of saying dollar for dollar, for male and female student-athletes and person to person, the number of male and female.
“The Trust was started, but again, the Trust actually needs more people for fundraising aspects. I believe the Trust wants us to be more involved in the fundraising and they want us to be more involved in a variety of different areas that we just can’t be.”
Baker, who will begin his duties as athletic director in two weeks, said he plans to go on a “barnstorming tour” to engage the masses, meet people and listen to what they say is important to WVU.