AD Scott Barnes to Pitt
The University of Pittsburgh announced the hiring of Utah State University Vice President and Athletics Director Scott Barnes Friday. Pitt’s Chancellor Patrick Gallagher made the announcement.
Barnes has been USU’s athletic director since 2008.
“Seven of the best years of our lives as a family were spent at Utah State, and the friends we made are for a lifetime,” Barnes said. “I can’t thank Stan Albrecht and Jim Laub and so many others enough for welcoming and supporting us. We will always have fond memories of Logan and Utah State University.”
Pitt has been without an athletic director since Dec. 17 when the school parted ways with Steve Pederson.
“Athletics play an important role in the life of the university,” Pitt Chancellor Patrick Gallagher said. “In Scott Barnes we have found a person who understands the role that athletics play and who also recognizes the primacy of academics.”
The report comes just weeks after Utah State’s announcement of Maverik, Inc. as a corporate sponsor for USU’s football stadium — a deal that Barnes was involved with.
Barnes recently finished his term as chair of the NCAA basketball selection committee. He also oversaw USU’s move to the Mountain West Conference.
“Although only a member of the Mountain West for a short period, Scott was a vocal leader within the athletics directors group,” MW Commissioner Craig Thompson said. “He made considerable contributions to both the dialogue leading up to and the actual decisions and philosophies in a number of areas.”
Some of Barnes’ achievements at USU included an 87 percent graduation rate for athletes, program expansion with the addition of the Wayne Estes Center, the corporate deal with Maverik, the transition to the MW and a deal with Nike, which rebranded the university’s athletic programs.
“Scott has been an absolutely essential member of our senior administrative team, and we are sad to see him go,” said Albrecht, Utah State University’s president.
“The fact that he has been courted by programs across the country, including the University of Pittsburgh, is surely a testament to the outstanding job he has done here at Utah State and to the amazing success he has brought to all of Utah State’s athletics programs.”
— dahdahjm@gmail.com
Twitter: @dahdahUSU