Mitch Barnhart shares goodbye message as his tenure in Lexington is officially over
Once the clock struck midnight and became June 30, it became Mitch Barnhart’s last day as the University of Kentucky’s athletic director.
Barnhart has now wrapped up a 24-year run in that position. He had a tremendous career in Lexington and will be remembered as one of the most impactful people in the athletic program’s history for this school for the rest of time.
Barnhart’s time at Kentucky included six NCAA championships, 63-regular season and tournament conference championships, and many great finishes in the Directors’ Cup (An annual award given to the most successful athletic departments), finishing as high as ninth in 2021-22.
Depending on who you talk to, you will hear many different opinions on Mitch Barnhart. Some will point to some lows, some will point to the many highs, but overall, he deserves to be praised in the end.
Barnhart shared words of gratitude this evening on Twitter/X, one of his social media platforms, as a final goodbye to Big Blue Nation and others.
As Barnhart stated in the tweets, there were certainly “peaks and valleys”, but this job serving as the athletic director at the University of Kentucky has been “the honor of our lives”. Barnhart also stated that he and his wife “look forward to cheering on the Wildcats as part of Big Blue Nation for years to come.”
Some of the athletic programs’ social media pages shared a post with today being Barnhart’s final day:
As Kentucky now enters a new era of athletics, with a new football coach, a new athletic director, and many other moving parts behind the scenes, we should reflect on what we witnessed over the last 24 years, thanks to Mitch Barnhart. He has done an unbelievable job turning Kentucky into an “everything school” instead of simply a basketball school, then everything else, while still maintaining great success in basketball.
Hats off, Mitch! Best wishes as you go into retirement!
