Barnhart nominated for Athletics Director of the Year
Mitch Barnhart is one of four nominees for Athletics Director of the Year, presented by the Sports Business Awards. Barnhart joins Jeff Long of Arkansas, Ian McCaw of Baylor and Dan Radakovich of Clemson in the running for the award. The winner will be announced at the Sports Business Awards ceremony on May 20, 2015 at the New York Marriott Marquis at Times Square.
“I am honored just to be mentioned for Athletics Director of the Year,” Barnhart said in release from UK. “I am thankful for our student-athletes, coaches, staff and the Big Blue Nation. This recognition, as well as our growth as a department, has come because of them.”
The nomination comes the same month UK Athletics completed the final stage of Barnhart’s 15 by 15 by 15 Plan.
Go Mitch!
21 Comments for Barnhart nominated for Athletics Director of the Year
Eat your heart out, Jurich
This could have happened sooner had he hired Cal the first go-round instead of Gillispie and not given Joker the reigns and actually hired someone outside the program like Stoops.
Joker and Gillispie literally set UK football and basketball back by at least 3-4 years worth in recruiting. Cal is a miracle worker and fixed it quickly. With football being a completely different dynamic in recruiting, Stoops has his hands full.
And haters gonna hate….
CONGRATS MITCH ON A JOB WELL DONE!!
You are not wrong. However, can we move past that. Cal was obviously a Home Run hire and Stoops is at least moving the behemoth that is UK football in the right direction. Not to mention that every other hire in the non-revenue sports is making him look pretty smart.
Truth, kyle heavy! This goofball mismanaged the football and basketball programs for a lot of years and shouldn’t have been employed long enough to have received this award at UK.
Mitch made two mistakes in his 13 yrs at UK that apparently can never be forgiven. Smh.
We can agree to disagree, but lets at least give some respect to one of ours who is being honored by people who know a TON more about this than we do.
I’d rather have someone representing our university that has class and morals, over someone who controls the media, and would sell their mother for wins. But that’s just my opinion.
Predictable, but absolutely ludicrous comment. At the time, fans thiught it was a great idea to name joker air apparent. Uf mitch had not done so and joker left to be OC or even HC elsewhere, mitch would have been raked over the coals. As for Billy, national pundits declared it a great hire at the time. In the end, he ended up with the two best fits possible for both programs.
Time to get the stick out if your a$$ and stop bitching about old “mistakes”. Monday am QBing is damn easy. Pathetic!!!
I”m not a hater, I don’t have a stick in my a$$, and I’m not bitching. I was just stating the obvious. Hindsight is 20/20.
I will argue that NOT everyone thought hiring Joker was a great idea at the time. Please tell me, how often do you see a coach announce he will retire and someone on his existing staff is announced to be the next head coach? Before you ponder that, understand and be honest with yourself that that coaching staff had a medicore overall record at UK at best. So what you are saying as an AD at that point is you are okay with yearly Music City Bowl berths.
Lastly, many national pundits expected Calipari to at least get a phone call the first time around. He did not.
Fair enough. But time to give mitch some respect.
I am more annoyed at his siphoning funds away from the massively profitable football team and letting it wallow in mediocrity. He would have kept doing that if the fans hadn’t finally voted with their dollars.
Now I am quite sure some goofball that doesn’t have any logic to back them up is just going to call me a hater but there were many articles citing how much is spent annually on Big Blue Madness compared to the entire football recruiting budget and our coaching staff still is not getting SEC competitive salaries.
“there were many articles citing how much is spent annually on Big Blue Madness compared to the entire football recruiting budget and our coaching staff still is not getting SEC competitive salaries.”
Provide links, please.
Do you remember how many people bitched on here when Mitch gave the football staff extensions, when they hadn’t made it to a bowl yet?
Poor Mr. Barnhart – “damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”
You can do the rest of your own research but here is one: http://deadspin.com/5951617/kentucky-basketball-spent-just-about-as-much-money-lighting-a-basketball-pep-rally-as-it-does-on-football-recruiting
It took all of 30 seconds for me to find it.
http://johnclay.bloginky.com/2012/10/14/a-tale-of-kentucky-athletics-and-two-light-shows/
I’m with you Ed. Start fully funding the football team!!!
Anyone on her against redistribution of wealth? Then please explain why you think it’s ok for the basketball team to get a bigger piece of this pie?
Andy Schum getting cropped out of the picture. Even after he saved the raccoon to keep the karma going.
Way to go Mitch!