LEXINGTON, Ky. — Mitch Barnhart, who is in the final months of two-plus decades as the athletic director at the University of Kentucky, won’t take on a new high-paying role at the school after all.
An announcement regarding the change of plans came just days after Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear questioned decisions being made at the state school, including within the athletic department and Barnhart’s move.
Barnhart and Eli Capilouto, the university’s president, issued statements Thursday confirming Barnhart wouldn’t become the executive in residence for the UK Sport and Workforce Initiative. That job was set to pay Barnhart $950,000 annually through August 2030, according to contract details.
“Mitch Barnhart came to me earlier this week to share his concern that the discussion surrounding his future role leading our sports workforce initiative has become a distraction from the work of our university,” Capilouto said. “Mitch and his family care deeply about this institution and our state, and they want the focus to return to the work that matters most for our students and the Commonwealth.”
Barnhart will retire June 30 from the role he had held since 2002 as the longest-serving athletic director in the Southeastern Conference. Capilouto said he will raise private funds — “not athletic funds, not funds that would go toward NIL opportunities or university funds,” Capilouto said — to handle compensation for Barnhart’s exit tied to his contract terms.
“Work has already begun on the Initiative,” Barnhart said, “but recently it has become apparent that now is not the right time, and we would never stand in the way of what we deem best.”
Beshear released a statement Tuesday saying he was “losing confidence and growing increasingly concerned” about Barnhart’s role and overall decision making at the university.
“My concerns include the creation of a new $1 million job that has no defined duties,” Beshear said in the statement, “and the announcement that the new dean of law was the only candidate not recommended by law school faculty.”