Newspaper clippings from previous NCAA Championship winning Kentucky teams are seen hanging in Lexington, Kentucky, on Tuesday, March 3, 2026. Mitch Barnhart was athletic director during the 2012 NCAA Championship win. Christian Kantosky/The Watchdog

University of Kentucky’s Mitch Barnhart will enter a new role at the end of June 2026 after serving as the university’s athletic director since 2002.

On March 3, in the early afternoon, UK confirmed Barnhart would be stepping down from his position to assume a new role as executive in residence of the UK Sport and Workforce Initiative.

The first to hold the position, Barnhart will act to help students interested in working in athletics find career opportunities and navigate the field, UK spokesperson Jay Blanton said.

In 2023, Barnhart signed a contract extension through June 2028, according to UK Athletics, which allowed him to transition into the “ambassador” role.

In December of 2025, Barnhart sat down for an interview with the Lexington Herald-Leader where he said he came to Kentucky expecting to stay for 6-8 years, but has stuck around for three times as long.

“I love this place with all my heart. . .” Barnhart told the Herald-Leader, adding that there are still stones left unturned. “I would like to win at some more things.”

In the interview, Barnhart said he loves UK’s coaches and that the university has “good people” on staff.

Since 2002, Barnhart has hired multiple championship-winning coaches. His hires of Craig Skinner and John Calipari brought national championship rings for volleyball and men’s basketball back to Lexington.

The 2011-12 men’s basketball team led by Calipari secured the program’s most recent national championship after coming up short in the SEC championship game against Vanderbilt, but not without coming away with the SEC regular-season title finishing 16-0 in conference play.

Further at the conference level, coaches under Barnhart made history with Skinner’s volleyball team winning nine-straight SEC titles, the 2006 and 2024 baseball teams winning the program’s only two conference titles, and the 2021 women’s swimming and diving team clinching their first-ever SEC championship led by a Barnhart-hired head coach, Lars Jorgensen.

Through the championship titles and history made, Barnhart faced coaching controversy and fanbase backlash.

Jorgensen, two years after bringing home a conference title, was put under investigation in May 2023 by the NCAA, SwimSwam reported.

A lawsuit filed by former swimmers alleging sexual assault by Jorgensen also alleged that multiple members of the swimming and diving coaching staff as well as athletic department administrators “failed to investigate” the misconduct and were “discouraged” from filing formal complaints by the Title IX office, according to the Herald-Leader.

A few years prior in 2020, the entire cheerleading staff was fired after an investigation determined the staff “failed to oversee off-campus events that included hazing, alcohol use and public nudity” by the team, 6abc reported.

Prior to the firings, head coach Jomo Thompson led Kentucky’s cheer program to 12 national championships after being hired in 2002.

Barnhart claimed his own title as the longest-tenured athletic director at a Power Four school with 2026 marking 24 years at Kentucky.

Blanton said more details will be discussed regarding Barnhart’s new role in the coming weeks.