Last month, Kentucky announced that its longtime AD Mitch Barnhart will retire at the end of the academic year and slide into a job that seemed to good, or at least too cushy, to be true.
Barnhart was to become the "Executive in Residence" for the university's Sports and Workforce Initiative. Kentucky's announcement didn't include many details of how Barnhart would lead the Initiative, but it did include the note in his retirement from his athletics director role, Barnhart was excited to spend more time hiking and golfing, in addition to the standard language of more time with the kids and grandkids. Oh, and Barnhart was to make $950,000 a year in this role, in addition to receiving 10 tickets to every Wildcat football, men's basketball and baseball game through his and his wife's lifetimes. Again, too good to be true.
And it turns out it was.
Kentucky announced Thursday that Barnhart will not assume this position, which was to be created for him upon his June 30 retirement from Kentucky athletics. The school said it was Barnhart's idea because the water had simply become too hot.
“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,” UK president Eli 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 had previously defended the role, and writing off criticism of the job, its nebulous at best duties and its lofty salary as coming from "two or three knuckleheads." Said Barnhart: "This notion that this golden parachute is falling from the ceiling and I'm gonna sit in the rocking chair and eat hay is ridiculous garbage."
Joining the chorus of knuckleheads recently? Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear.
“I am losing confidence and growing increasingly concerned with the management and decision-making at the University of Kentucky,” Governor Beshear said. “My concerns include the creation of a new $1 million job that has no defined duties.”
Capilouto's comments Thursday indicated the Sports and Workforce Initiative is not going away, and neither is the Executive in Residence role; it just won't be filled by Barnhart. Capilouto defended the near million-dollar salary by saying that it will be privately raised by the president himself and not touch the athletics or NIL budgets. “The compensation associated with his departure will be supported entirely by private funds — not athletic funds, not funds that would go toward NIL opportunities or university funds — that I will raise," Capilouto said. "Mitch’s impact on this university has been profound, and I am grateful for his decades of leadership and service.”
While Capilouto is off raising money, one wonders if it will still require nearly a full million to staff that position or if only Barnhart was worthy of that figure.