MORGANTOWN — Leland Byrd, the first 1,000-point scorer in West Virginia men’s basketball history who later became the university’s athletic director, died on Wednesday at his home in Morgantown. He was 94.
A 6-foot-3 guard in his playing days, Byrd, a current Florida resident, came to WVU out of Matoaka High School in Mercer County.
He played for head coach John Brickels as a freshman, but had greater success over his final three seasons with coach Lee Patton.
The Mountaineers competed in three National Invitational Tournaments in Byrd’s four seasons and finished 72-15 overall during his college career.
As a junior in 1947, Byrd was named to the Helms Foundation All-America team and was also awarded the state’s Amateur Athlete of the Year.
He finished with exactly 1,000 career points in 87 games.
In 1948, Byrd was an eighth-round pick by the New York Knicks, but was drafted to serve in the U.S. Army, where he served until 1952 as a first lieutenant in the special services at Red River Arsenal in Texarkana, Tex.
He returned to Morgantown with his wife, Elizabeth Louise Machen, in 1953, and earned his master’s degree.
Byrd then sat out on a journey that took him from high school basketball coach to college coaching to eventually getting into administration.
In 1972 — at the age of 44 — Byrd was named WVU’s fifth athletic director, succeeding the retiring Robert “Red” Brown.
The WVU Coliseum had just been built two years prior to Byrd’s arrival and was still in its infancy, and the football team was being led by coach Bobby Bowden and finished 8-4, playing in the Peach Bowl in Byrd’s first year.
Byrd’s contributions to the modern era of WVU athletics are significant.
Women’s sports were upgraded to the varsity level for the first time under Byrd’s watch, and in 1978, Byrd hired Gale Catlett as the school’s men’s basketball coach.
Catlett won 439 games over 24 seasons, the most ever in school history.
Byrd was also charged with the planning, design and fundraising for the construction of Mountaineer Field, now Milan Puskar Stadium.
The stadium first opened in 1980, a year after Byrd left WVU to become executive director of the newly formed Eastern Collegiate Basketball League (Eastern 8). He worked in the Eastern 8 until 1984, and helped the conference expand to 10 teams and become the Atlantic 10.
His career in athletics ended in 1992, as the athletic director for Western Michigan.
Byrd is inducted in the West Virginia Sportswriters Hall of Fame, the WVU Sports Hall of Fame, and the WVU School of Physical Education Hall of Fame.
In 2010, WVU introduced the Leland Byrd Leadership Award, which goes to the top WVU men’s and women’s basketball players for leadership both on and off the court.
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