Mike Barnes Shares 30 years of Longhorn Sports history
Welcome to Longhorn brand builders for Season #2. Click on the triangle for Mike’s oral history of longhorn sports
Mike and Kim have shared a special journey and it is just beginning.
Mike Barnes's high octane performance on Austin's KVUE-TV and his intuitive ability to deliver sports news with passion pleased regular viewers and attracted countless new ones in a rare sportscasting career that spanned three decades at one station. Intuitively, Mike knew audiences didn't want a PowerPoint presentation. They wanted accurate sports news delivered with warmth and style.
For 29 years, Mike’s charismatic qualities led him to the top of the regional media class. He was exactly where he wanted to be in life. While many in his profession expressed legitimate concerns about industry cutbacks and other nuance changes, Barnes chose not to worry about changes he couldn't control.
“I’ve learned through the years you have to be happy,” Mike said. “I know too many people who don’t enjoy their jobs, and viewers can see it on the air. I don’t worry too much about the future. I’ve been fortunate.”
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Mike was honored as the “Best in Austin" 17 times in his 29 years and also won Associated Press awards for “Best Sportscaster” and “Best Sportscast” in Texas. Barnes was also cited for his insightful commentary, winning the prestigious Murrow Award for Reporting.
Along with his anchoring duties, he also hosted "Texas Tailgaters". It was a show first aired before UT games on ABC and then became a weekly show during football season for Mike’s last decade on the job. He was also a coveted speaker and emcee for area events.
Barnes said one of his great joys was the very successful weekly “Friday Football Fever” It began as a short segment just before his first year at KVUE, and grew into a 30-minute show.
A montage of Mike’s interviews with Longhorn brand builders is at the link below.
Changes in the TV industry finally caught up with Mike Barnes but he said he has no regrets for hanging tough and spending 30 years smiling while enjoying many special moments in sports history. Mike covered four Super Bowls, three NCAA National Championship games, five Final Fours, nine College World Series, 12 bowl games, and 24 Texas-OU games.
No one in the competitive world of TV can survive without support and guidance.
Like Mike, Kim Barnes, his wife of almost 30 years, has three decades of on-camera experience. She covered the Branch Davidian standoff near Waco, the Olympic bombing in Atlanta, worked as a weekend anchor and taught broadcast journalism at the University of Texas. In her “spare” time, she does voice-overs and performs on-camera work for multiple corporate clients.
Mike and Kim, who even shared anchor time at KVUE from1996-98, lend credence to the saying that opposites attract. Says Kim: “I am an extrovert. Mike's an introvert. I like to be involved. He’s pretty easygoing. I’m a perfectionist and he's a boom, get-it-done guy.”
“We’ve both been this way as long as we’ve known each other, but working together does sometimes make our differences more apparent. We do have to be conscious of our differences when we’re making decisions and give each other some grace since we process things differently," Kim continued.
" He often helps me take action before I’m completely ready, and I slow him down sometimes before acting too fast –- which makes us a good team.”
Kim and Mike are now teaming up to help a "small" target audience of roughly 99% of all people who get a dry mouth and heart palpitations if they have to speak in public or work in front of a camera. The fear of public speaking is the most common phobia ahead of death, spiders, or heights. They have spent the Covid months teaching people to do business on Zoom and other virtual platforms effectively.
Mike and Kim have also been busy helping their elderly parents and starting a Facebook Group to share suggestions for others going through similar situations.
It’s called Parenting Aging Parents.
Mike and Kim post interviews every week with experts, talking about topics like Alzheimer’s, Long Term Insurance, Home Care, Hospice, Senior Living, and more. A great place to go for questions and support in a community-type atmosphere.
Horns 🤘 Up to Longhorn brand builders Mike and Kim Barnes.
TLSN podcasts are produced by LSPN and hosted by Chris Doelle with some special appearances by Professor Larry Carlson