Barnhart, Feamster Inducted into Kentucky Sports Hall of Fame Class of 2022

LOUISVILLE, Ky. –  Mitch Barnhart, present athletics director on the College of Kentucky, and Sue Feamster, a pioneer of ladies’s varsity athletics at UK, had been inducted into the Kentucky Sports activities Corridor of Fame (KSHOF) on Tuesday in a ceremony on the Galt Home in Louisville.

Comprising the 45^th KSHOF class are Barnhart, Feamster, Michael Bush, soccer star at Louisville Male Excessive Faculty, the College of Louisville and within the NFL within the early 2000s, and Dallas Thornton, basketball star at Male, Kentucky Wesleyan and the Harlem Globetrotters within the 60s, 70s and 80s.

A variety committee comprised of 17 sports activities media professionals from all through the Commonwealth, together with the Bygone Period Choice Group, selected this 12 months’s class. The KSHOF is owned and operated by the Louisville Sports activities Fee, a Kentucky-based non-profit whose mission is to draw, create, host and function sporting occasions and actions that improve the standard of lifetime of the Commonwealth. The KSHOF was based in 1963 to acknowledge athletes and sports activities figures who’re Kentucky natives or who participated of their respective sport or made a big impression of their sport in Kentucky.

The KSHOF Class of 2022:

Mitch Barnhart – Athletics Director on the College of Kentucky since 2002, Mitch Barnhart has led the Wildcats’ program to unprecedented success whereas additionally serving in management roles in school athletics. Below his watch, UK has earned top-20 finishes the final 5 years within the nationwide all-sports standings, together with a ninth-place end in 2022 that’s the highest in class historical past; six nationwide championships (males’s basketball, ladies’s volleyball, rifle); 49 common season and convention match championships, together with first-ever Southeastern Convention titles in baseball, males’s golf, ladies’s tennis and girls’s swimming and diving; a present streak of six consecutive soccer bowl video games; 20 consecutive semesters of a department-wide 3.0 grade-point common; hundreds of hours of annual group service; faculty data for student-athlete commencement charges; and ideal marks yearly within the 18-year historical past of NCAA Tutorial Progress Price. He additionally has overseen greater than $300 million facility enhancements and operated a balanced finances yearly with no state or college funds. Barnhart was Chair of the NCAA Division I Males’s Basketball Committee in 2020-21, and dealing alongside the Committee and NCAA workers, led the profitable implementation of a plan to stage your entire 68-team match in a single metropolis throughout the peak of the pandemic. That very same 12 months, the UK volleyball and rifle groups gained nationwide championships. Barnhart has led the event of quite a few packages that put money into the general success of UK student-athletes throughout and after their years on campus, and he has served on the NCAA Division I Council and Division I Baseball Committee, served as chair of the NCAA Competitors Oversight Committee and at the moment serves on the Collegiate Soccer Playoff Committee. In 2019 he was named Athletic Director of the Yr by Sports activities Enterprise Journal. In December, he’ll obtain the John Toner Award, given for excellence in athletics administration, from the Nationwide Soccer Basis and School Corridor of Fame

Michael Bush – A two-sport star at Louisville Male Excessive Faculty, Michael Bush went on to a stellar soccer profession as a working again on the College of Louisville (UofL), then performed six seasons within the NFL. At Male, Bush twice earned the Paul Hornung Award because the state’s finest prep soccer participant, was named Mr. Soccer and Gatorade Participant of the Yr as a senior and was runner-up for Mr. Basketball, averaging 21.1 factors and 10.5 rebounds per recreation. As a sophomore and junior, he amassed 3,031 yards and 37 touchdowns as a receiver and led the group in tackles. As a senior quarterback, he handed for two,891 yards and 35 touchdowns and was a workhorse within the memorable 59-56 state championship loss to Trinity: he handed for 468 yards and 6 touchdowns, rushed for 116 yards and a rating, caught two passes, recorded 5 tackles, and returned one punt and one kickoff. In three seasons as a working again at UofL, Bush rushed for two,508 yards and 39 touchdowns and caught 50 passes for 651 yards and two touchdowns. He had six 100-yard dashing video games in 2005 when he set a single-season faculty file for dashing touchdowns (23) that also stands. Bush performed in three bowl video games, together with a dominating fourth quarter dashing efficiency in a 44-40 win over Boise State within the 2004 Liberty Bowl. As a senior, he rushed for 128 yards and three scores within the Cardinals’ season-opening win earlier than struggling a season-ending harm within the third quarter. Bush was drafted by Oakland, and performed 4 years for the Raiders and two with the Chicago Bears, recording 3,250 yards dashing and 29 touchdowns and 1,010 yards receiving and two touchdowns.