Current position | |
---|---|
Title | Athletic director |
Team | Kentucky |
Conference | SEC |
Biographical details | |
Born | Kansas City, Kansas, U.S. | August 27, 1959
Alma mater | Ottawa University (BA) Ohio University (MS) |
Mitch Barnhart (born August 27, 1959) is an American college athletics administrator. He is the athletic director for the Kentucky Wildcats athletics program at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, Kentucky. Barnhart was hired by the university in 2002 succeeding Larry Ivy. [1] Barnhart served in the same capacity at Oregon State University from 1998 to 2002. He is the university's tenth athletics director. In August 2023 Barnhart signed an extension on his contract which will keep him at Kentucky until 2028. [2]
Barnhart received his Bachelor of Arts from Ottawa University and a Master of Science in sports administration from Ohio University.
Barnhart is currently the longest serving AD in the SEC. For the 2016–17 school year, Kentucky athletics finished 10th nationally in the NACDA Directors' Cup, more than 100 student-athletes graduating, and finishing five straight years with an average GPA of over 3.0. [3]
As of 2017, several coaches and administrators who have worked under Barnhart at Kentucky are now serving as athletic directors at other universities, including: [3]
Barnhart was inducted into Omicron Delta Kappa - The National Leadership Honor Society at the University of Kentucky in 2017.
In April 2024, Barnhart would be named in a Title IX sexual violence lawsuit which accused him of complicity with former swim coach Lars Jorgensen, who was accused of being a sexual predator while he was a swim coach at the University of Kentucky between 2013 and 2023. [4] [5] Emails from June 2012 also revealed that Mark Howard, a former assistant swimming coach at the University of Toledo, informed both Barnhart and Gary Conelly, who at time served as University of Kentucky's head swim coach, that Jorgensen was accused of being involved in a sexual relationship with a female student he coached while employed at the University of Toledo. [4]
The University of Kentucky is a public land-grant research university in Lexington, Kentucky, United States. Founded in 1865 by John Bryan Bowman as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Kentucky, the university is one of the state's two land-grant universities. It is the institution with the highest enrollment in the state, with 32,710 students in the fall of 2022.
Memorial Coliseum, coloquailly known as "The House That Rupp Built" and "Historic Memorial Coliseum", is an 8,500-seat multi-purpose arena in Lexington, Kentucky. The facility, which opened in 1950, is home to four women's teams at the University of Kentucky – basketball, volleyball, gymnastics, and stunt. Before Rupp Arena opened in 1976, it also housed the men's basketball team. Memorial Coliseum also housed the university's swimming and diving team prior to the 1989 completion of the Lancaster Aquatics Center.
Richard Llewellyn Brooks is a retired American football player and coach. He was the head coach at the University of Oregon from 1977 to 1994, the National Football League (NFL)'s St. Louis Rams from 1995 to 1996, and the University of Kentucky from 2003 to 2009.
Billy Clyde Gillispie, also known by his initials BCG and Billy Clyde, is an American college basketball and current men's basketball coach at Tarleton State. Gillispie had previously been head coach at UTEP, Texas A&M, Kentucky, and Texas Tech.
Joe "Joker" Phillips Jr. is an American football coach and former player. He is the assistant head football coach and wide receivers coach at North Carolina State University, a position he has held since the 2021 season. Phillips served as the head football coach at the University of Kentucky from 2010 to 2012.
The Kentucky Wildcats football program represents the University of Kentucky in the sport of American football. The Wildcats compete in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and the Eastern Division of the Southeastern Conference (SEC). The Wildcats play their home games at Kroger Field in Lexington, Kentucky and are led by head coach Mark Stoops.
The University of Kentucky Soccer Complex is a soccer-specific stadium in Lexington, Kentucky on the campus of the University of Kentucky.
The UK Sports Network, historically known as the Big Blue Sports Network (BBSN) and also formerly known as the UK IMG Sports Network, is the radio and television network of the University of Kentucky Wildcats men's and women's sports teams. It consists of five over-the-air television affiliates and 44 radio stations in Kentucky and neighboring states.
The Kentucky Wildcats women's basketball team represents the University of Kentucky in the Southeastern Conference. The Wildcats have four Elite Eight appearances and seventeen appearances in the NCAA Division I women's basketball tournament. They have won the SEC tournament twice and SEC regular season championship once.
The 2012 Kentucky Wildcats football team represented the University of Kentucky in the 2012 NCAA Division I FBS football season. The team, led by third-year head coach Joker Phillips, played their home games at Commonwealth Stadium in Lexington, Kentucky, US, and compete in the Eastern Division of the Southeastern Conference (SEC). On November 4, 2012, Kentucky Athletic director Mitch Barnhart announced that the university would not retain Phillips as head coach after the season.
Lars Ploug Jorgensen is an American former Olympic swimmer and college coach. In April 2024 the US Center for SafeSport suspended him temporarily for allegations of misconduct.
Gary Robert Conelly is an American former swimmer who represented the United States at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany. Conelly swam for the winning U.S. teams in the preliminary heats of the men's 4×100-meter freestyle relay and 4×200-meter freestyle relay. Under the 1972 Olympic rules, however, he was ineligible to receive a medal because he did not swim in the final of the relays.
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James Andrew Bartko was an American college athletics administrator who spent most of his professional life at the University of Oregon, as well as some years at Washington State and UC Berkeley and as athletic director at California State University, Fresno.
The Wendell & Vickie Bell Soccer Complex, colloquially known as "The Bell" is a soccer-specific stadium at the University of Kentucky, in Lexington, Kentucky in the United States. It is the home of the university's men's and women's college soccer teams.
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The Ohio State University abuse scandal centered on allegations of sexual abuse that occurred between 1978 and 1998, while Richard Strauss was employed as a physician by Ohio State University (OSU) in the Athletics Department and in the Student Health Center. An independent investigation into the allegations was announced in April 2018 and was conducted by the law firm Perkins Coie.