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University of Kentucky's Mitch Barnhart named chair of SEC Athletics Directors

Fletcher Page
Courier Journal
UK Athletics Director, Mitch Barnhart, speaks during the University of Kentucky football media day at the UK Nutter Training Center in Lexington, KY. Friday, August 8, 2014.

LEXINGTON, Ky. — Mitch Barnhart, the leader of University of Kentucky athletics, will serve as the chair of Southeastern Conference Athletics Directors, the conference announced Wednesday. 

Barnhart, the longest-tenured athletics director in the conference and in his 16th year at UK, was selected by a unanimous vote of his peers during a meeting earlier this week in Birmingham. 

"Mitch's experience as a proven leader makes him uniquely qualified to head our group of athletics directors during this particularly important time in the history of intercollegiate athletics," said SEC commissioner Greg Sankey. 

Barnhart will succeed retiring Auburn athletics director Jay Jacobs, who served as chair since 2012. His duties will include chairing each meeting of the conference's athletics directors. 

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Kentucky finished 50th in the Directors' Cup standings, an all-sports measure of success, during his first year at Kentucky in 2003. In 2016, UK finished a school-record 10th. 

"This is an important step toward our goals, but we are not going to rest in our work to establish UK athletics as one of the truly elite departments in America," Barnhart said in June. 

Barnhart's influence around the league is clear. Alabama AD Greg Byrne, Florida AD Scott Stricklin and Mississippi State AD John Cohen previously worked for Barnhart at Kentucky.

"Two things it does: It makes me feel old, but you think about all the people I’ve had work for me and I’m really thankful for those guys," Barnhart told Courier Journal earlier this year. "I think of the impact they had on my life and how cool it was to have them around me. Those guys gave me as much as I gave them. They gave me great energy and celebration in the moments we had together. I’ll always appreciate that. I take pride in what they’ve accomplished, I’m glad to see their families succeed and to know that maybe there’s a nugget or something that they took from whatever we did in our time together, that they got to go out and have some fun, it’s fun to watch them. Now, I expect when we get in a room together I want their vote. (Laughs). I’m joking. It’s fun. We’re going to get together in the spring meetings down in Destin. We’re going to get together and have some fun. It’s the first time a bunch of us have been together in awhile. It’s really cool. I’m looking forward to that.”

Mark Coyle of Minnesota and Oregon AD Rob Mullens also worked for Barnhart, who previously served as athletics director at Oregon State (1998-2002).