University of Iowa athletic director Gary Barta will retire Aug. 1 after 17 years with the Hawkeyes.
“It has been an absolute privilege and honor to serve in this role the past 17 years,” Barta said. “I’m humbled to have worked beside, and on behalf of, so many student-athletes, coaches, staff, donors, fans, and community leaders over the past two decades. The success enjoyed by our student-athletes and coaches during my entire tenure, and especially the past several years, has been impressive and record-breaking on so many levels.”
During his tenure, Iowa captured four NCAA team titles across all sports, but Barta leaves behind a complicated legacy when it comes to swimming and diving.
A few years after arriving in Iowa City, Barta oversaw the construction of the $69 million Campus Recreation and Wellness Center — a 150,000-square-foot facility featuring a 50-meter pool — that opened in 2010. Five years later, it hosted the Men’s NCAA Championships for the first time in 88 years. In the summer of 2019, the Hawkeyes put another $5-6 million into pool repairs.
In August of 2020, however, Iowa announced it was cutting both its men’s and women’s swimming and diving programs, becoming the sixth Division I school to drop one of its swimming and diving teams because of budget issues brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic and the first Power Five program to do so. Michigan State followed suit soon after, sparking a battle for reinstatement that remains ongoing. The move ended a 103-year legacy for varsity swimming and diving at Iowa, one of the longest legacies in college swimming.
The Hawkeyes were also set to host the 2021 Men’s NCAA Championships, but that privilege was revoked after their decision to cut both programs. College Swimming and Diving Coaches Association (CSCAA) executive director Greg Earhart said the event would have generated “nearly $1.5 million in economic impact for Iowa City and thousands more in earned positive media for the university.”
In the wake of Iowa’s decision to cut its swimming and diving programs, a group of women’s swimmers filed a Title IX lawsuit that led to a judge granting an injunction preventing the school from cutting the women’s swim team. The group of Iowa women’s swimmers posted a $360,000 bond in January of 2021 to show they were serious about battling for reinstatement, and Barta opted to reverse his decision to drop the women’s team the following month rather than drag out the legal fight any longer.
“The women’s swimming lawsuit brought forward last September, combined with the recent court order mandating the continuation of the sport during the legal process, has created additional uncertainty that could last several months or even years,” Barta said in February of 2021.
At the time, alumni told SwimSwam that they still thought there was a chance for the men’s team to be reinstated as well, but that they believed it would take a change in athletic director for that to happen.
The Hawkeye women finished 9th out of 13 women’s programs at the 2020 Big Ten Championships, right before the COVID-19 pandemic shut everything down. At the past two Big Ten Championships since being reinstated, Iowa has placed last out of 12 women’s teams.
“Gary’s achievements at the University of Iowa are significant, and our coaches and student-athletes have enjoyed tremendous success on and off the field during his tenure,” Iowa president Barbara Wilson said. “I’m grateful for his leadership as a Hawkeye and I wish him well in his retirement.”
An interim athletics director will be announced next week.
This guy was the definition of an old school “show me the tickets” AD – if the sport wasn’t football, basketball or wrestling, he hated it. If he had his way, every Olympic sport on that campus would be gone. He lost so many lawsuits and ruined his reputation with so many people, he actually couldn’t do his job effectively.
And about “retiring” …. yeah, okay. On top all of controversies over the years, the most recent lawsuit (loss and settlement) actually drew the ire of a state administrator who publicly asked for him to be dismissed. That’s really bad when a state government employee calls out a university employee.
LATER GARY!🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
The pool is amazing and recently built, it is too bad Barta didn’t fight to keep swimming and diving alive. Iowa doesn’t have D1 men’s swimming anymore.
He did whatever to funnel all the money to football and basketball.
It’s so expensive to be barely above average!!!
Good! This is a horrible man & leader. Good riddance!
I’m in that picture!
Lovely pool. Terrible administration
Gary Barta’s legacy is one of incompetence, arrogance, and lawsuits.
It will take a decade to fix the problems with the administrative culture at the UI and years to hopefully bring back the Men’s Swimming & Diving program. Barta leaving is only one step in the right direction.
Barta leaving probably won’t fix administrative problems when the presidents thinks “Gary’s achievements at the University of Iowa are significant”
Correct. Some others need to go as well (including the manipulating tool that is the VP of Finance) and there needs to be unrelenting political pressure placed on the Iowa Board of Regents to fix some of these issues. There is hope if President Wilson and new AD are on the same page about working with the alumni, donors, and the some of the Regents to right the ship.
Bring back the MEN!
Does Ferentz get to decide who his next puppet will be, or are those strings finally cut?
The next AD is likely to be Beth Goetz who has been appointed interim AD until at least spring 2024. It appears she will have every opportunity to keep job. She left the AD post at Ball State last summer to be #2 at Iowa. Prior to that she had been the #2 at both UConn and Minnesota. She has a history of strong commitments to women’s athletics and would be a great permanent choice. Whether that would ever result in bringing back the men’s program remains to be seen but there may other issues with that beyond Gary Barta.