Report: Gary Barta set to announce retirement
In a somewhat surprising development, Iowa athletic director Gary Barta is set to announce on Friday that he will be retiring according to a report by Pete Thamel of ESPN. The news that Barta was retiring wasn’t a complete surprise, but the timing caught many off guard.
Barta has served as the athletic director for the University of Iowa since August of 2006. He has presided over several very successful projects during this tenure, including the building of a top of the line football facility and the remaking of Kinnick Stadium, including the development of club seating in the north end zone. Barta is also responsible for the upcoming development of a wrestling training facility that is current under construction.
During his time leading the Iowa athletic department, Barta also saw Hawkeye teams win 12 Big Ten titles and this past year the Iowa women’s basketball team played for the NCAA title. He also saw Iowa win an NCAA wrestling title and oversaw the Iowa football team win the Big Ten West and advance to the Big Ten title game twice.
Iowa also enjoyed great academic success as an athletic department during his tenure. With his mantra of Win, Graduate, Do It Right, Barta helped lead Iowa to a graduation success rate of 89% among student-athletes. He also placed an emphasis on leading in the community with student athlete academic services leading the day of caring for the past 23 years and helping to put in place the Kids Captains program.
Barta also served a three year term on the College Football Playoff Committee, including two years as the committee chair.
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Of course, there are also some challenging situations that Barta has been part of during his tenure. Those include issues with Title IX within the athletic department in terms of hiring and also an associate director of student service engaging in sexual harassment.
Perhaps the biggest negative issue that Barta was faced with during his tenure involved the firing of field hockey coach Tracey Griesbaum and then the employment discrimination lawsuit filed by former associate athletic director Jane Meyer, who is also the partner of Griesbaum. The result of that was a lawsuit, and ugly trial, and a loss for Barta and the Iowa athletic department in the civil trial resulting in a 1.43 million dollar win for Meyer. Iowa then settled the legal proceedings with Griesbaum for 6.5 million dollars.
Also, in 2017, Barta announced that he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He took some time away that year and fully recovered from cancer.
