Let me make it clear that I have no idea who the University of Kentucky might hire as the next athletics director — or if UK is going to hire several people with different titles to fill the vacancy created by Mitch Barnhart’s upcoming retirement.
Someone well connected in today’s college athletics world recently suggested to me that a perfect candidate for Kentucky would be Heath Schroyer.
He is the Senior Deputy Athletic Director at Louisiana State University but also spent 25 years as a Division 1 men’s basketball coach with stops at BYU, Wyoming, Portland State, Fresno State, UNLV, UT Martin and NC State.
He was the head coach at McNeese State from 2018-2021 before taking over as athletics director in 2021 and then moving on to LSU in 2026.
Here are some reasons the source felt Schroyer could be what UK needs and bring a clean slate with no ties to anyone to Kentucky along with new ideas based on what he did at McNeese:
● 29 years Division I athletics experience
● Appointed to NCAA D1 Council & NCAA Men’s Basketball Oversight Committee (July 1, 2024 to June 30, 2028)
● Appointed to Gov. Landry’s NIL taskforce
● Named 2024-25 Louisiana Athletic Director of the Year
● Nineteen conference championships in five years. Three straight men’s NCAA tournament appearances. First men’s basketball NCAA tournament win in university history. First conference championship in women’s basketball in 15 years.
● Number 2 turnaround in the country in NCAA football 2024-25
● Raised $3.1M for NIL/rev-share ‘23-24, ‘24-25, ‘25-26
● Created an annual NIL Summit which brings together student-athletes and 40 area businesses. Student athletes are educated in financial literacy; NIL deals are signed; and internships are attained. One of only two summits (LSU being the other) of its kind in the region.
● Raised over $47M in four years for facility upgrades through strategic fundraising, leveraging political relationships and naming rights initiatives
● Year over year school fundraising records broken in both corporate sponsorships (750% increase) & private donations (300% increase)
● Created Cowboy Block Party concept— free concerts held Friday nights before McNeese home football games. These block parties engage the community and are executed at no-cost to the athletic department as they are donor funded.
● Secured $5M in naming rights deal for football press box—highest naming rights donation in both university and Southland Conference history
● Secured $4.5M in naming rights deal for basketball arena–second highest naming rights donation in both university and Southland Conference history
● Secured $1.25M basketball court logo sponsorship
● Increased athletic budget by 20 percent over last three years through fundraising, corporate sponsorships and premium season ticket sales
● Restructured university marketing strategy which resulted in national recognition across social media platforms. (Created YouTube channel, Poke Nation app, weekly Poke Nation TV show on CBS and weekly “This Week in McNeese Athletics” videos.)
● 24-25, 25-26 led Southland Conference in football, men’s basketball, women’s basketball and softball attendance.
● Recruited four current Southland Coach of the year recipients
He made McNeese one of the best mid-major athletics programs in the nation. That’s why he was recruited to be senior deputy athletics director at LSU where he is the executive director of external relations for LSU.
Could he be the right fit at Kentucky? I remember about 30 years ago when a high school coach suggested to me that Hal Mumme would be the perfect replacement for football coach Bill Curry. He was a Division II coach at the time but once I looked into his record, you could tell he was an offensive genius. Then UK athletics director C.M. Newton was bold enough to make the hire and it would have worked perfect if Mumme had just been a tad interested in defense.
Schroyer certainly has impressive credentials but he’s likely too much of an out of the box candidate for folks at UK to even consider.
2 Responses
Appears we might have scared off the Boise State AD contender, and it was possibly the threat of multiple shared responsibilities there. UK seems to be having some difficulty closing in other areas than BB. One would think we would be a very attractive hire for a lot of qualified folks.
Not lot of AD's would want to inherit a basketball coach in trouble, football coach who has yeet to coach a game, former AD getting a big buyout and continuing NIL money wars