Since 2014, Sean Loyd has worn the hats of both West Virginia State head baseball coach and athletic director. The baseball cap won out.
Loyd - who has won a pair of Mountain East Conference titles as baseball coach and oversaw major growth of the Yellow Jackets athletic program as AD - stepped down from the AD job Tuesday night to focus on baseball. Nate Burton, the university's director of development and a former star point guard at Charleston Catholic High School, has been named interim athletic director.
West Virginia State's AD since 2008, Loyd has enjoyed both roles. Yet baseball, a sport he fell in love with at 7 years old, tugged at him strong enough that he decided to choose between the two.
"My passion has always been to be a baseball coach, and that's where I wanted to fall," Loyd said. "I wanted to just really be true to what my passion was.
"I found myself in idle time, the things I was thinking about more were baseball stuff," he added, "coaching my team and focusing on my players. When those thoughts started shifting that way, it really brought up the antenna for me that, you know what, you're telling yourself what you really want to do here."
He had discussed the idea of stepping down as AD for the last few weeks with his family and WVSU President Brian Hemphill. Hemphill said hearing that news was so tough, he asked Loyd to step back and think it over during the holidays, hoping he might change his mind.
Loyd has overseen a period of significant enhancement in WVSU's athletic department. In March 2014, the university opened the Walker Convocation Center, which features renovated classrooms, offices and locker rooms, as well as a new 1,300-seat arena for basketball and volleyball. In March 2015, the university opened the Gregory V. Monroe Athletic Complex, the new home for the Yellow Jackets football team. Loyd also ushered the Yellow Jackets into the MEC from the now-defunct West Virginia Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.
"I've had the privilege over 25-plus years to work with a lot of different athletic directors in varying roles," Hemphill said. "And I will tell you I would put Sean in the top three or four of the number of athletic directors I've worked hand-in-hand with. He's a strong, strong professional that cares about our student-athletes."
Loyd has prided himself in the fact that, as hectic as being both AD and head baseball coach could be and how much he loved coaching his team, he never shirked his responsibilities as the athletic department's top executive.
"Being athletic director at West Virginia State, I've felt, was always an important job, and it's a great job," Loyd said. "It's been a great place to work and I've been lucky to have worked for excellent administrators and an unbelievably great president."
For much of his AD tenure, Loyd, a former Yellow Jackets baseball player himself, had served as an assistant baseball coach under Cal Bailey. He took over the top job in 2014 and won MEC baseball tournament titles in both 2014 and 2015. The Yellow Jackets returned to the NCAA tournament last season for the first time since 2010, falling in the Atlantic Regional. Loyd is 68-33 over two seasons as State's head coach.
Burton, who has been the university's development director since September 2014, was a second-team Class A all-state basketball player for Charleston Catholic and has a history in athletics. He played basketball at Division III Washington and Jefferson College, served as assistant director of external relations in athletics at High Point University in North Carolina from June 2012 to April 2013, then became the assistant director of athletic development at the University of North Carolina Wilmington from April to December 2013 before returning to the Kanawha Valley.
"We're in good hands," Loyd said of Burton. "We're in really good hands. I think Nate will be fantastic."
Hemphill, who will become president of Radford University in July, said there is no timetable for the search for a permanent AD, the immediate focus staying on the spring 2015 semester.
Now Loyd can focus solely on his Yellow Jackets baseball team and the quest for a third straight conference title. It's a luxury he hasn't yet enjoyed and one he's excited to experience.
"It could be good or bad," he said with a laugh. "I may screw things up. We may have so many trick plays because I've had the time to come up with them.
"I'm really excited about that aspect, because I think, in order to be a highly effective head coach, you have to get up every morning and that team has to be the first thing on your mind."