Tuesday, July 16, 2002
Kentucky's new AD a man with plan
Oregon State's Barnhart gets nod
The Associated Press
LEXINGTON — It didn't take University of Kentucky President Lee Todd long to settle on Oregon's State's Mitch Barnhart as the school's new athletics director.
“He came into the interview with a manila folder and had written on it a plan of what he thought needed to be done at the University of Kentucky,” said Todd, who announced Barnhart's hiring Monday. “I was really impressed by that.”
Barnhart, 42, takes over an embattled athletics department, stung the past few years by turmoil off the playing field and failed expectations on it.
In four years at Oregon State, Barnhart hired former NFL and University of Miami coach Dennis Erickson to turn around one of the Pacific-10 Conference's worst football teams and worked tirelessly to raise money to make the department more financially solvent.
“I think this is one of the top jobs in the country,” he said during a news conference. “I feel there is no reason that this program can't be everything that the fans and the university want it to be.
“The job has a tremendous set of challenges, but I'm looking forward to tackling those. I want to have a staff that has great energy and great enthusiasm, and I won't settle for anything less.”
Barnhart received a seven-year contract worth $375,000 per year — $275,000 in base salary and $100,000 for participation in UK sports radio and television programs — and as much as $150,000 annually in incentives based on the department's overall athletic and academic performance.
The move, recommended by Todd after a four-month search, was approved by the University of Kentucky Athletics Administration's Association's board of directors prior to before the news conference.
The only dissenting vote among the 13 board members present came from law professor Robert Lawson, who said the financial terms could cause concern among other university faculty, staff and administrators.
“This would put his compensation level above that of the president of the university,” said Lawson, who left the meeting without comment before the news conference. “This moves us into a much higher level than we've been before.”
Todd said the terms of the contract were competitive in the current marketplace.
“It puts us ahead or near the top in the Southeastern Conference, which is where we ought to be,” he said.
Following the news conference, the executive committee of the university's board of trustees also approved the hire.
In addition to Barnhart's initial vision for the department, Todd said he was impressed by his proven record of success.
Barnhart, a Kansas City, Kan., native, spent 12 years in the SEC at the University of Tennessee before taking the top job at Oregon State in 1998.
At Tennessee, he assisted the athletic director in all aspects of administering a $35 million budget and in the hiring of head coaches.
One of his first moves at Oregon State was to hire Erickson, who led the Beavers in 2000 to their first Pac-10 Conference championship in nearly four decades.
Barnhart also has helped the school's athletic department trim its $12 million debt to about $4.5 million and quadrupled the amount raised for scholarships to more than $4 million.
“He has a deep passion for working with students, and his philosophies are very much in sync with mine on how to run this program,” Todd said. “I believe he has a well thought-out vision on how to move our athletics department forward.”
Todd and a seven-member advisory panel interviewed three finalists last week, including Southern Methodist University athletic director Jim Copeland and Keith Tribble, executive director of the Orange Bowl Committee.
The position had been vacant since March 5, when Larry Ivy resigned in the wake of serious recruiting violations in the football program and a poor review of the university's athletics department.
A committee appointed by Todd to look into the department's practices recommended that Ivy be let go to make necessary reforms.
Terry Mobley, the school's director of development and a former basketball player under coach Adolph Rupp, had served as interim athletics director since Ivy's resignation.
In January, Kentucky's athletics program was placed on three years' probation by the NCAA and its football team was banned from a bowl appearance next season and lost dozens of scholarships because of more than three dozen recruiting violations committed under former coach Hal Mumme.
The football team has gone 4-18 over its past two seasons while the school's women's basketball and baseball teams also have foundered.
“The probation is the hand you're dealt, so you just have to go on from that point,” Barnhart said. “We're going to audit every program and see what the coaches and student-athletes feel they need to be successful.
“We're not going to be perfect, and (President Todd) understands that. But he's going to get great effort in doing things the right way.”
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Kentucky's new AD a man with plan
