University of Kentucky AD Mitch Barnhart spoke recently about new cheerleading coach Ryan O’Connor.
Barnhart praised O’Connor and talked about how she’s a great fit for the program and university.
Check out his comments:
Barnhart said the program received a lot of interest nationally during a search conducted by Executive Associate Athletics Director Sandy Bell, who settled on O’Connor. Barnhart said O’Connor “stood out among all” of the other candidates.
“(She is) someone I felt like we needed to have and bring some energy to our program that understood our values and understood our traditions at Kentucky and had an understanding of cheerleading,” Barnhart said. “ … what it meant competitively, how you train, how you get ready, how you put a team together, and then how you represent a university like the University of Kentucky and Big Blue Nation. That was really important to me … we wanted to make sure we worked our way through that.”
Bell added that finding the right fit was a “huge priority for us over the past few weeks” and said O’Connor’s experience at the Division I level and in the Southeastern Conference was “really, really important to us.”
O’Connor said she has the same core values as Barnhart and the rest of the program. She added, “we can’t treat one more important than the other” and stressed consistency on and off the floor.
