Outgoing AD Barnes 'saddened' he won't see fruits of labor at Pitt

Scott Barnes' jaw tightened, but he maintained his trademark professional decorum when he talked Tuesday about leaving Pitt to become athletic director at Oregon State.

During a 30-minute conversation with the Tribune-Review, he admitted his story is one of unmistakable sadness, most significantly on a personal level.

Barnes' 20-year-old daughter Milanna, a former basketball player at Utah State, is dealing with a medical issue and his 83-year-old mother is in declining health in Spokane, Wash., he said, compelling the family to re-connect with loved ones on the West Coast.

But Barnes, 54, is a professional athletic administrator — nearly as much as he's a son, husband and father — and he said it won't be easy next month when he walks out of his Petersen Events Center office for the last time.

“We are saddened because we don't get to see the fruits of all our labors,” he said. “Under normal circumstances, we'd be here.

“I want people to understand how much we have appreciated being here. Pitt has been a blessing to me and my family.

“With what's happened here in the last six months, 12 months, it's changed our outlook, it just has. It really took a great medical community and some good friends to help us understand some of the problems we were dealing with.”

Barnes said there were no immediate plans to move to his native Pacific Northwest — he was born in Spokane — but he might have considered such a move much later in his career.

“Certainly, we had no intention of leaving,” he said. “A window opened and during that time we struggled with some family health issues. That compelled us to look now.”

Barnes declined to talk specifically about his daughter's situation.

“People who know us and have become friends with us absolutely understand,” he said. “That includes the Board of Trustees and donors. The fringe doesn't know and will never know, but those who know understand.”

Family matters to Barnes and his wife Jody. So much, that he insisted to both schools that he doesn't want to start at Oregon State until Feb. 13.

The reason speaks to why he is leaving Pitt in the first place: He wants to be in town for senior night at North Allegheny, where his son Isaac is on the basketball team.

At Oregon State, Barnes said he will be heading an athletic department that is on an unprecedented upward trajectory that he described as “a lot like Pitt.”

The football team has won only six games the past two seasons, but Barnes hired coach Gary Andersen at Utah State and knows him well. Women's basketball was in the 2016 Final Four, the men's team reached the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1990 last season and the baseball team has won two national championships in the past decade.

And when he was introduced at a news conference last week in Corvalis, Ore., Barnes was seated in an athletic facility undergoing renovations funded by $42 million in private donations.

“We need someone at this point and time to help us move this program to the next level,” Oregon State president Ed Ray said last week at a news conference. “I honestly believe he can do that.”

Barnes said Oregon State was the only job he considered, but he did confirm he was contacted “unofficially,” by the University of Washington a year ago, but did not interview.

But what about the place he is leaving?

Barnes met Tuesday with Chancellor Patrick Gallagher, who previously said Barnes will help in the transition. Barnes has fielded inquiries about the job, and he said he will pass along the best fits to the university search committee and DHR International, a firm that helped recruit him to Pitt in 2015.

When he accepted the Oregon State job Dec. 21, he said he called every Pitt coach and several staff members and donors, conversations he described as “very emotional.”

Coach Pat Narduzzi and his wife Donna, who Barnes said “will be friends for life,” were among the select few who knew he was interviewing at Oregon State.

Barnes said when he arrived at Pitt 20 months ago he found a “close-to-the-vest culture” that led to some members of the senior leadership team not speaking to each other.

“We had to chip away at that over time,” he said.

Meanwhile, Barnes said he sought transparency with everyone, including donors, staff, coaches and the Board of Trustees.

“Together, we cast a big vision and put a plan in place … that will guide this athletic program for the next decade,” he said.

“We were methodical. We listened to the fans, changed the culture in terms of transparency, in term of listening to each other and our fans.”

One of his final acts was repeatedly trying to convince former offensive coordinator Matt Canada to turn down the LSU job, offering him a $1 million annual salary that was unprecedented for a Pitt assistant.

Barnes said he had offered Canada a new contract several weeks prior to his leaving, and then he and Narduzzi met with him at a staff Christmas party at the University Club.

On the matter of Heinz Field attendance, Barnes admitted to being “puzzled” by the crowds of fewer than 40,000 after Pitt's upset of Clemson, considering the record sale of season tickets.

“One of things I learned coming in here is they love champions,” he said, noting Pitt is on the right track but hasn't yet arrived at that level.

“It's a program that had been mediocre for a while. People are still wait-and-see on can we sustain.”