Here’s where the Missouri athletic director search, previous AD’s buyout stands
ROLLA, Mo. — All it took was nearly two months and a shiny, new north end zone.
Shortly after presenting renderings for the Memorial Stadium Project, a planned $250 million renovation to Missouri football’s north concourse, the UM Board of Curators gave the first concrete update on the state of Mizzou’s search for an athletic director.
It’s been 59 days since former Missouri athletic director Desireé Reed-Francois left Missouri for the same role at Arizona. In the interim, updates have been limited to the odd question for curators spotted at athletic events, with the response almost exclusively that the university will, indeed, hire a new head for its athletic department.
More: What will Missouri football’s stadium upgrade look like? Renderings of proposed $250M project
The university established an 11-person search committee in early March to look for the Tigers’ new AD, and hired search firm Turnkey ZRG to assist with the search.
On Thursday, on the campus of Missouri S&T, there was a concrete update.
“We're moving along. We had an incredible turnout, incredible applications,” curator Bob Blitz said. “... So, the pool was a very broad pool. The candidates, from my perspective, are great candidates. There were a lot of them who could be an SEC athletic director. … The choice is difficult. And we're slowly narrowing it down.”
The update came at the tail end of a press conference held to discuss proposed renovations to Memorial Stadium in Columbia. The Board of Curators voted unanimously to pass the resolution, which went through much of the planning stage without a full-time person at the helm of Missouri athletics.
Marcy Girton has been Missouri’s interim athletic director for the past two months, and answered several questions about stadium renovations. That seemed like an unlikely, given the time that has elapsed since the search committee was formed.
Blitz, however, disagrees.
“It's not a long time,” Blitz said. “When somebody looks at something and he says, ‘why is it taking so long,’ it depends on what your perspective is on things. … What I'm trying to find out is: There are certain general characteristics that make a good athletic director, and those are very important, … you have to get down into the specifics.
“What fits Missouri? Does somebody want to live in Columbia, Missouri? Do they want to make it their home here? Are they gonna get along with the administration? Are they going to get along with the board? So, we're trying to do a thorough job, come up from a great list of candidates to get the best athletic director possible for this university. And my guess is we're getting close.”
Blitz said the ability to fundraise and the ambition to win championships were Missouri’s “two primary considerations.” He added that the search committee is “always interested in somebody who is going to be able to care for the welfare of the athletes.”
The next AD will be Missouri’s fourth in the past nine years, following Reed Francois (2021-24); Jim Sterk (2016-21) and Mack Rhoades (2015-16).
There will be two executive meetings of a the Mizzou Athletics Intercollegiate Athletics Committee. It is unknown whether or not an athletic director will be a topic of discussion.
Missouri expects terms of Desireé Reed-Francois’ contract to be honored
After Reed-Francois left Missouri to take the same role at Arizona in February, it was widely reported that her new employer, which was prepared to offer $1.5 million, expected her to reduce or eliminate the remainder of the $3 million buyout owed to Mizzou.
In response to a question from the Columbia Daily Tribune, UM System President Mun Choi didn’t say whether or not Missouri has received a request from Reed-Francois or Arizona.
But …
“We do have a contract,” Choi said, “and we do expect the contract terms to be honored.”
That seems to indicate that the university expects Reed-Francois’ buyout to be paid in full.
Why was an oversight committee formed?
Shortly before Reed-Francois departed for Arizona, the Board of Curators unanimously voted for the creation of the Mizzou Athletics Intercollegiate Athletics Committee to oversee athletic department spending. The committee was to be chaired by Blitz and composed of curators Robin Wenneker, Todd Graves and Jeff Layman.
On Thursday, the curators dismissed that establishing the committee was anything out of the ordinary, citing two reasons for the timing of the announcement.
First: Blitz said that boards across the country are taking greater interest in the athletic departments due to how “complex” college athletics has become following the introduction of NIL and the portal, adding that ticket pricing and university branding also are considerations.
More: UM Board of Curators approves resolution for renovations to Missouri football’s Memorial Stadium
Second: “The other thing is, with the statistics that we saw, we felt, in fulfilling our fiduciary duty, that it was a must to step in and find out more about what was going on in the athletic department,” he said. “We're not trying to pick coaches, we're not trying to do those kinds of things. We're trying to make sure that the athletic department is running in a financially responsible way and doing the best they can.”
Missouri’s athletic department finished the fiscal year 2023 in the black by $1. Under Reed-Francois, the athletic department spent record amounts but also brought in record revenue.
Wenneker echoed Blitz’s sentiments on the university's fiduciary duty, and added that the board has had a “clear goal” for the past two years to “elevate” Missouri athletics, which is a reason why they designated a smaller, targeted committee to oversee the department.
“That’s been a clear goal for us for the last two years,” Wenneker said. “I think we all understand that, but nine of us trying to work on this is — even routinely — is cumbersome, so we took it to four. That allows the committee to be more targeted and monitor, which was a key part of that, how we can move athletics forward.”
This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Updates on Missouri athletic director search, status of former AD's buyout
