Missouri AD Mack Rhoades leaving for Baylor

Missouri athletic director Mack Rhoades is leaving the school after just more than a year on the job.

First reported by PowerMizzou.com, Rhoades will be the next athletic director at Baylor. The Bears are without an athletic director after Ian McCaw resigned following the release of the Pepper Hamilton investigation surrounding the school’s handling of sexual assault accusations.

[Forde: Mizzou is a bigger dumpster fire than Baylor]

Before his resignation, McCaw had been sanctioned by the university. Baylor made the news official at approximately 4 p.m. ET.

“While my family is excited to start this new chapter in our lives, we do so with great appreciation for our time at Mizzou,” Rhoades said in a statement. “We’ve met many wonderful people and made lasting friendships. I believe the athletic department has a very bright future.”

Rhoades came to Mizzou from Houston and has had quite the eventful tenure with the school; perhaps why he’s leaving the SEC school for an institution reeling from the revelations of how it has conducted business in recent years.

His first, and most major, issue at Mizzou came when the football team boycotted activities in support of a graduate student on a hunger strike at the university.

The football team’s involvement made the hunger strike and protests — which involved graduate student benefits and what protesters believed to be multi-faceted systemic oppression — a national story and sparked discussion about the roles and obligations of scholarship athletes when it came to protests in support of their beliefs.

Not long after the boycott was announced by players, then-coach Gary Pinkel said he supported them.

The boycott was over after three days following the resignation of the University of Missouri president and the team played its next game against BYU as scheduled.

Pinkel resigned at the end of the year after he revealed he had cancer just days after the boycott. Rhoades hired defensive coordinator and Missouri alum Barry Odom to take over for Pinkel. The news of Rhoades’ departure came as Odom was meeting with the media at SEC Media Days for the first time as head coach.

The football player uprising wasn’t the only player revolt Rhoades has dealt with either. This spring, softball players issued a statement before a game saying they were playing in protest of Rhoades and the ahtletic department. The school is currently investigating softball coach Ehren Earleywine regarding his treatment of players.

Rhoades has been publicly vague regarding the investigation, now a Title IX investigation, though Earleywine was never suspended during the season. A season that ended in the NCAA Super Regionals.

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The Missouri softball statement, issued May 7, said “The administration is conducting an unjust investigation, which includes: bullying and intimidating players during forced interviews; AD Mack Rhoades told us that we, the players, don’t have ANY say in who is the coach of our team; we believe a gag order has been placed on our coaches; the administration was completely incompetent in handling the fall football scandal and they are doing a worse job at this; this is a title IX sport and they’re making up a false investigation.”

Rhoades also recently hired Steve Bieser as the school’s new baseball coach after Tim Jamieson’s resignation following a 22-year tenure with the school. Many people also believe men’s basketball coach Kim Anderson is facing a make-or-break third season with the school after two poor seasons.

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Nick Bromberg is the assistant editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
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