UK athletic director believes lot of mileage about freshman ineligibility

By: LARRY VAUGHT

Earlier this week Kentucky athletics director Mitch Barnhart said he believes there is a “lot of mileage in the conversation” about the possbility of freshman ineligibility and that he’s representing the Southeastern Conference in the discussion.

“Obviously you're going to hear a lot of things out there, and it's not my spot to speak for anybody on the council, anybody else. As an athletic director at Kentucky, I think that we've got our issues and challenges in terms of how we would want to talk about it. I would certainly want to do a little more research on it and see the impacts on both good and the bad, of how all those kind of conversations would play out, and I don't think I'm ready to formulate an opinion on that just yet,” said Barnhart.

“There's a history of that several decades ago and then freshman were allowed to be eligible and continue to play, and there's all sorts of pieces that affect their academics, their retention to come back to school, the programs — there's so many moving parts to that I think that it is a conversation that will be pretty complicated here over the next six, 12 months, 18 months, two years.”

Barhnart said all NCAA legislation will have to be proposed by Sept. 1 and eventually there could be a voting and normal convention cycle in January.

“I'm sure whatever someone wants to think about will fit in to that cycle, so we'll go back to that. It's the first time we've been in it in a while. There's a moratorium on legislation over the last couple of years and so there has not been any real new legislation that hasn't come from the board of directors. That's a change, and so that'll be a new deal as we go through the fall,” Barnhart said.

So is it really possible freshmen won't be eligible in the future?

“I don't know. I think we'd be getting way ahead of ourselves to even foster a guess at that. I think that we've seen a lot of changes in college athletics over the last 10, 15, 20 years, so you never say never on anything,” Barnhart said. “I think we've got to be very thoughtful about what we're doing, and we need to make sure it's in the best interest of young people as well as the programs they work with, that they play for.

“I think the challenge is making sure everyone's interests are served in this thing and making sure, again, at the end of the day, young people have the best opportunity to have the experience that they thought they wanted.”