In 2002, as a member of the UK Athletics Administration’s board of directors, [Robert Gene] Lawson cast the sole dissenting vote against hiring Mitch Barnhart as athletics director. Lawson said he didn’t object to Barnhart, but the $375,000-a-year salary UK promised him was “ridiculous” compared to the more modest sums paid to other UK faculty and staff. (Barnhart remains in the job and now makes $600,000 a year.)
Over the past 50 years, the UK Athletics Department evolved into its own universe with its own rules, Lawson said.
“They have become an independent entity, separate from the rest of the university, which is a problem,” he said. “Their budget is their budget. The athletics department regards the money that comes in for athletics as their money, not the university’s money.
“And I guess I have felt, watching it through the years, that they sort of lost what I would consider to be a reasonable connection of these students to the university as compared to athletics,” he said. “Let me just give you an example. When I first came here, the basketball season was 20 games. It’s now 40. I have my doubts about how they can be a legitimate college student when they’ve got that problem.”
UD has loved following the University of Kentucky on this blog. It doesn’t get any crazier than UK. And it’s getting crazier. It’s the sort of thing that keeps me in business.