As Mitch Barnhart starts final month at UK, here’s what we know about AD search
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Mitch Barnhart departs after 24 years while Kentucky continues the AD search.
- UK plans to at least announce a hire by Barnhart’s final day, June 30.
- UK hired DSG Global for the search and agreed to pay $30,000 plus expenses.
Mitch Barnhart is in the final weeks of his 24-year tenure as Kentucky athletics director, but the search for his replacement is ongoing.
UK maintains the plan is to at least announce a hire by Barnhart’s last day, June 30, but since the announcement May 21 that Barnhart’s replacement would carry the titles of athletics director and CEO of Champions Blue LLC, the school has gone silent on the state of the search.
Still, there are important lessons to be learned from that announcement and the way Kentucky is conducting the search.
The hire is likely to be an external candidate
In the 10th paragraph of Kentucky’s release announcing the updated job description was the note that UK president Eli Capilouto “is looking toward both sitting college athletics directors and people with varied backgrounds in pro sports and business.”
It has been growing clearer for weeks that Kentucky was prioritizing candidates who could generate more revenue for the department and rein in expenses. The chances of an unconventional hire from pro sports or the business world increased with the confirmation the hire would carry the CEO title too.
Initial fan speculation — and conspiracy theories — promoted the idea Kentucky would simply promote from within to maintain continuity with Barnhart’s tenure. A UK spokesman declined to comment on whether the note about sitting athletics directors meant internal candidates were no longer in the running, but the wording of the release cannot be ignored.
It would now be a major surprise if deputy athletics director Marc Hill or any other current Barnhart lieutenant were promoted to the job.
According to the formal job description, “the ideal candidate will possess demonstrated executive leadership experience.”
UK is using a search firm
Shortly after releasing the job description crafted from feedback Capilouto garnered on his listening tour that featured approximately 80 interviews with various stakeholders, UK confirmed to the Herald Leader it was using search firm DSG Global in the process to find Barnhart’s replacement.
UK will pay DSG $30,000 plus expenses for the athletics director search, according to a contract obtained by the Herald-Leader through the state’s open records law. Expenses could include candidate travel, consultant travel, project-specific advertising and payments to third-party vendors contracted to perform background verifications, social media screening and other candidate assessments.
The school has used DSG for previous executive searches, but the firm is not known as a major player in athletics searches. The athletics director position at North Carolina A&T is the only active college athletics search listed on the firm’s website.
The choice of search firm could add more credence to the idea that UK will make an unconventional hire.
Wisconsin, the other power conference program currently looking for an athletics director, is using CSA as its search firm. That’s the same search firm that assisted Louisville in hiring current athletic director Josh Heird in 2021.
While CSA is well-known as a search firm for prominent college athletics openings, its work is limited to higher education. DSG works with a much wider scope of job searches.
Among the active searches listed on DSG’s website are multiple museum director positions at the Smithsonian Institution, CEO of tech firm DataKind and president of the University of Toledo Foundation.
Rest of department structure remains in flux
The Herald-Leader reported in May UK was considering dual leadership models for the athletic department based on a series of possible organizational charts developed for the school by consulting firm Deloitte. UK ultimately chose not to use any of the four org charts developed by Deloitte, but elements from them could still be used moving forward.
“We were informed by both the work and modeling represented in the charts, but even more importantly by the ongoing feedback throughout this process, including more than 80 listening sessions with President Capilouto and a broad range of stakeholders,” Jay Blanton, UK’s vice president for university relations, said in a statement to the Herald-Leader. “The result is a model responsive to what UK needs at this time in a still evolving landscape.
“We need a CEO, who recognizes that college athletics is a business with increasing needs in generating revenue in creative ways, while ensuring discipline and efficiency in managing budgets and operations. And we need an AD, who will lead a tremendous staff and coaches toward excellence in competition and the classroom.”
Blanton said UK’s decision to combine those responsibilities into one role was consistent with the university’s other business units like the hospital.
UK has declined to reveal any other specifics about what the athletic department organizational chart will look like moving forward until after the athletics director/CEO hire is made, but it seems certain more change is coming than simply adding the CEO title to the athletics director position.