Retiring Kentucky AD Mitch Barnhart won’t take new high-paying role at school
Apr 23, 2026, 12:33 PM
FILE - University of Kentucky Director of Athletics Mitch Barnhart watches an NCAA college football game between Kentucky and Mississippi State, in Lexington, Ky., Oct. 15, 2022. (AP Photo/Michael Clubb, File)
Credit: ASSOCIATED PRESS
(AP Photo/Michael Clubb, File)
LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) — Retiring Kentucky athletic director Mitch Barnhart won’t take on a new high-paying role at the school after all, an announcement coming days after Gov. Andy Beshear questioned decision-making at the school that included Barnhart’s move.
Barnhart and University of Kentucky President Eli Capilouto 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 as AD, a 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 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,” Barnhart said.
On Tuesday, Beshear released a statement saying he is “losing confidence and growing increasingly concerned” about Barnhart’s role and overall decision-making at UK.
“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.”
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