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Days after the state’s governor criticized the move, University of Kentucky athletic director Mitch Barnhart unveiled Thursday that he will forgo a $1 million retirement gig that had been widely criticized.
Earlier this year, Kentucky president Eli Capilouto unveiled that Barnhart would retire June 30 before accepting a seven-figure gig as executive in residence for the UK Sports and Workforce Initiative, an assignment with few contractual details that prompted major Kentucky boosters to demand a reversal of the decision.
Capilouto reported Thursday that Barnhart will no longer accept the role.
“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 reported in a news release. “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.
“With that in mind, Mitch has informed me that he will retire from his position of Athletics Director on June 30 and step away from the proposed ongoing role leading the Sports Workforce Initiative at the university. Over the next several weeks, he and I will work through the terms of his departure, through a process guided by his contract.”
On Tuesday, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear added to the controversy when he released a statement that questioned the recent actions of the university, including Barnhart’s proposed retirement job.
“I am losing confidence and growing increasingly concerned with the management and decision-making at the University of Kentucky,” Beshear reported in a statement Tuesday. “My concerns include the creation of a new $1 million job that has no defined duties.”
Despite pushing back on backlash in recent months, Barnhart and Capilouto collectively had a different tone in Thursday’s announcement.
Beshear’s words also put a bigger spotlight on Barnhart’s turbulent tenure. He’s credited with hiring Mark Stoops, who orchestrated two of the program’s four 10-win seasons in football, and John Calipari, who led the men’s basketball team to the national title in 2012.
But Barnhart’s rocky relationship with Calipari led to the coach’s departure in 2024, and the AD fired Stoops in December. In football, he hired Oregon offensive coordinator Will Stein to replace Stoops. In basketball, Mark Pope — hired by Barnhart to replace Calipari — is coming off a subpar second season that ended in the second round of the NCAA tournament. Pope also has not landed a top-100 recruit and has missed out on key portal targets, a development that could lead to speculation about his future entering his third year with the program.
Barnhart was also named in a 2024 Title IX lawsuit involving former swim coach Lars Jorgensen, who’d been accused of sexual assault by multiple swimmers. They also accused the university of failing to address the sexual assault allegations against Jorgensen, who resigned in 2024 and has been banned from coaching by the U.S. Center for SafeSport.
Of this week’s move, Barnhart reported in a statement, “With our family previously having made the decision to retire in June from the position of Athletics Director, we were very excited about beginning the Workforce Initiative, developing a new program and pouring into the next generation of leaders in sports. 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. The world of sports is dynamic and ever-changing. It is my hope that this initiative will continue in the future.”
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