Barnes denies report he’s leaving Pitt
Scott Barnes, the athletic director at the University of Pittsburgh, has denied reports he is taking a similar position at Oregon State.
In a statement released Thursday, Barnes said, “I am aware of a report stating that I have accepted a position at Oregon State. That report is not true.”
A report from Pittsburgh Sports Now Wednesday night said Barnes was “likely” to take the Oregon State job. Steve Clark, Oregon State’s vice president of university relations and marketing, told The Oregonian/OregonLive “we are aware that there are national reports that this position has been offered. We can neither confirm or deny those.
“To my knowledge, the position has not been offered at this time.”
The Oregonian/OregonLive reported Dec. 8 that Oregon State was conducting preliminary interviews for the position last week in Las Vegas and learned that the search has since narrowed its pool of candidates. Barnes is believed to be among the candidates.
Barnes was hired in April of 2015 to replace Steve Pederson. Barnes was born in Spokane, Wash., and worked in sports administration on the West Coast. He also was athletic director at Utah State from 2008-15.
One of Barnes’ more important hires at Pitt was men’s basketball coach Kevin Stallings.
Stallings told a media gathering yesterday, “I’ve been in Scott’s shoes and it’s no fun when there are reports out there that are just completely untrue. … I do feel confident in this: if Scott Barnes decides to leave, I’ll know before you guys know. That, I’m sure of. I got asked last night if whatever, and then I wake up this morning and all I could say was I haven’t heard anything and I wake up this morning and see that Scott’s issued a statement, and it completely confirmed what I believed in my heart at that particular moment, and that is, if he makes a decision to leave or anything like that, I’ll know before the media knows.
But to speculate beyond that, I don’t think it’s fair to him.”
Oregon State’s previous athletic director, Todd Stansbury, left a year ago to take the same job at Georgia Tech, his alma mater.