REPORT: Oregon State Athletic Director Scott Barnes Stepping Down

Recent reports suggest that Scott Barnes' nine year reign over Oregon State athletics will conclude on August 31st. Learn more in this piece.

Vice president and director of athletics Scott Barnes, right, introduces JaMarcus Shephard as the new head coach for Oregon State football at Reser Stadium on Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2025, in Corvallis, Ore. | Kevin Neri/Statesman Journal / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

First floated by independent columnist John Canzano yesterday afternoon, and then corroborated by a report from OregonLive.com's James Crepea yesterday evening, Oregon State will soon have a new athletic director.

Scott Barnes, who has led the school's athletic department since 2017, will retire at the end of August.

One timeless truism of storytelling is that there are at least two sides to every story. Barnes' tenure in Corvallis is a textbook example. On one hand, he hired Jonathan Smith, who rescued the Beavers' football program from Gary Andersen. On the other hand, Barnes oversaw Andersen's final year in Corvallis - with coaches pointing fingers - and later hired Smith's successor Trent Bray, who led the football team to it's lowest point since 1991.

Barnes' later years at Oregon State featured a two-year battle for survival outside of power conference athletics. Oregon State football and baseball played independent schedules, while Oregon State men's & women's basketball, men's & women's soccer, and softball played as affiliate members in the West Coast Conference. Last October, Barnes assisted Pac-12 Conference leadership in adding five new members from the Mountain West Conference, and the conference announced it would resume play in 2026. Buttressing OregonLive.com's reporting, Barnes succinctly explained that his motivation for retirement aligned with the school's transition.

“I think it’s time to transition to a new role and have a new leader come in and take it to the next level.”

Barnes final years in Corvallis are also pock-marked with controversy: in October, former Oregon State rowing coach Gabriel Winkler filed a lawsuit in Benton County Circuit Court which alleged that he was wrongfully terminated. The lawsuit cited Barnes repeatedly - he was Winkler's direct supervisor - and now the plaintiff is seeking more than $4.5 million in damages.

The Spokane native attended Fresno State, before embarking a career in sports business in the late eighties. His first collegiate opportunity arrived as the University of San Diego's Director of Athletic Development in 1989-90. From there, Barnes worked behind the scenes at the University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA), and Iowa State, before becoming the athletic director at NCAA Division II Humboldt State (now known as Cal Poly Humboldt) in 1997. Then an upward trajectory led him to an athletic director role at Division I FCS Eastern Washington in 1999. After several years as a senior associate athletic director at The Evergreen State's most prestigious university Washington, Barnes took over athletics at Utah State (2008-12), then earned his first power conference leadership position at Pittsburgh (2015-16) before returning west to Oregon State.

Oregon State has not announced this change, or offered clarity on their future direction. Any updates will be reported when they unfold.