Ask Mark Anything: Is Mitch Barnhart’s UK legacy tainted by job controversy?
This week’s edition of “Ask Mark Anything” features questions from readers about Mitch Barnhart’s legacy, Mark Pope’s recruiting and Billy Donovan’s future.
Let’s get to it.
Question 1: How much do you think Mitch Barnhart has tainted his legacy with this $1 million a year “retirement job” fiasco? — Michael J., via email
Mark’s reply: Obviously, the announcement by UK that Barnhart, after retiring as Kentucky athletics director on June 30, would be moving into a new role as executive-in-residence of a newly formed UK Sport and Workforce Initiative with a salary of $950,000 created a massive public controversy that has engulfed the end of the long-time UK AD’s tenure.
Basically, there have been 6½ weeks of populist outrage over what many perceived as Barnhart’s “golden parachute.” This week, you even had Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear taking a public shot at the Barnhart deal.
On Thursday, Barnhart and UK president Eli Capilouto announced that Barnhart will not move into the new job after all.
That was the right decision.
Obviously, it would have been better for Barnhart and the University of Kentucky not to have taken the actions that led to the wide-scale public outcry.
That said, I don’t think that five years from now, a weeks-long hullabaloo about a job and salary that Barnhart ultimately did not take is going to be front and center in evaluation of his legacy.
Question 2: Comes from social media platform X, and is about the “Barnhart Family Athletic Complex” on the UK campus.
Mark’s reply: In 2020, UK named the area of campus that includes Kentucky Proud Park (the Kentucky baseball park), John Cropp Stadium (softball) and the Wendell and Vickie Bell Soccer Complex (men’s and women’s soccer) the “Barnhart Family Athletics Complex,” in honor of Mitch Barnhart and his wife, Connie.
At the time, UK said that university policy “does not normally consider nominations to name buildings for active employees except in the most extraordinary cases.”
However, UK said then that the “Barnhart Family Athletics Complex” had been adopted at the request of donors Vickie and Wendell Bell — whose financial gifts to UK Athletics at that time had totaled more than $9 million — as part of their most recent donation.
UK’s advisory committee on naming university property decided then that the situation qualified as “extraordinary because the donors’ gift was contingent on the naming.”
I think it would have been better for the university to follow its normal protocols in the naming of the area. I also understand the pragmatism involved if a big financial donation was dependent on the naming.
All that said, Barnhart was the AD who presided over the construction of the various sports venues contained within the “Barnhart Family Athletics Complex.”
I don’t see any reason to “un-name” the area now.
Question 3: Also comes from X and is about Mitch Barnhart’s potential replacements.
Mark’s reply: While traveling for March Madness, I just happened to run into someone whose name is often speculated upon in discussions about the UK AD opening.
Off the record, I asked whether said person would be interested in the job.
The reply was: It will be a great job for somebody.
Make of that what you will.
On the record, I’ve been fascinated by how little scuttlebutt there has been about candidates for the job.
UK hasn’t hired an AD since it tabbed Mitch Barnhart in 2002. Given the changing landscape of major college sports, this is, obviously, a massively important hire for the University of Kentucky.
Yet even people I talk to who are generally “in the loop” on goings-on at UK say they have not heard viable names on the AD job.
On Thursday, On3’s Justin Rowland reported that Boise State AD Jeramiah Dickey “has been a candidate of interest for Kentucky.”
Last month, my Herald-Leader colleague Jon Hale wrote about the idea of Kentucky going outside college sports, perhaps to professional sports or the business world, to find a non-conventional candidate who might be better positioned to meet the need for growing revenue now that universities such as UK are paying their players.
That is intriguing, but one of the big risks in that is whether an “outsider” would have the connections and contacts to hire good coaches.
Question 4: Comes from Bluesky user “Goblin,” who asks, “How do you FEEL about Mark (Pope’s) efforts to develop the best roster that is possible (UL, Duke, UNC comparisons) and how confident are you Mark is going to find a way to put a Final Four-capable team on the floor next year?
Mark’s reply: I don’t think Kentucky men’s basketball presently has anything close to a “Final Four roster.” But I am optimistic about the five players I would consider the top five on the 2026-27 Cats as things stand now potentially forming the core of a good team.
Assuming Malachi Moreno takes his name out of the NBA draft and returns to UK for his sophomore season, I think the center has a chance to take the proverbial “big step up.”
In Kam Williams’ second season at Kentucky and third in college hoops, I think you will see him have a strong year if healthy.
I am intrigued by Braydon Hawthorne, who redshirted last season at UK. Some who get to watch Kentucky practice are really high on Hawthorne.
Also, I like the guards, Zoom Diallo (transfer from Washington) and Alex Wilkins (Furman), who Pope added from the transfer portal. I think that duo will give Kentucky a capacity to “get down hill” offensively that the Wildcats have not had to date in the Pope coaching era.
UK still needs to add, in my opinion, a power forward who can provide some muscle, a knock-down wing shooter and a backup center good enough to play, say, 15 minutes a game against good competition.
To get into Final Four consideration, I think Kentucky would need to add a star-caliber player at any position, whether that comes from the transfer portal, international basketball or the household of Tyran Stokes (the latter of which would surprise me).
Question 5: Is about a column I wrote this week about Billy Donovan and the non-ending linkage of him with a Kentucky coaching job he has, essentially, turned down three times.
Mark’s reply: I had reservations writing about Billy Donovan in the context of a Kentucky head coaching job that is not vacant.
Ultimately, I chose to do so after Donovan stepped down Tuesday as Chicago Bulls coach because I heard and/or read on message boards a good number of UK fans talking about Billy D and UK (again).
As I wrote in the column, there was also much discussion in the national sports media about Donovan’s future, a lot of which referenced Kentucky.
As should have been evident in reading the column, my view is that if Billy Donovan wanted to coach Kentucky, he would have already done it.
