COLUMBIA, Mo. — One month is down. How many more are there to go?
Wednesday marks a month since Desiree Reed-Francois’ surprise departure from the University of Missouri’s athletics director post, and the school has yet to make significant progress in hiring her replacement.
In the weeks since her Feb. 20 exit, there have been plenty of questions, from whether MU administration will lower her contract buyout to how much power Mizzou’s AD actually has.
More recently, there have been some early, organizational steps taken. Both a search firm and a search committee are in place. The former is working on identifying target candidates to provide to the latter.
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The recent job posting for the Missouri job also provides some hints to what the university will expect from its next AD.
“The search has begun,†UM System President and MU Chancellor Mun Choi told the Post-Dispatch on the sideline of the Tigers’ Saturday spring football game.
But there aren’t any signs that the athletics director search has moved far past the ignition stage — and that’s rather unsurprising.
When the Mizzou administration agreed to a deal with Turnkey ZRG for its executive search services, the search firm sent the university an authorization form. The sheet contained plenty of basic background information: the job title, UM System contacts, the fee that would be paid to Turnkey.
But Missouri submitted the form with two notably blank sections. Left unspecified were fields for target salary and target hire date.
That suggests that, at least formally, the university is willing to take a patient approach with its hire and pay its chosen athletics director the salary it thinks is necessary to secure their services.
Reed-Francois’ hiring was a swift process, with just two weeks separating Jim Sterk’s resignation and her arrival. But it also isn’t out of the question for searches to take longer.
Texas A&M hired new AD Trev Alberts from Nebraska last week, a hire that came roughly two months after previous Aggies athletics director Ross Bjork left for Ohio State.
It’s a notable comparison for the Mizzou search since Texas A&M also hired Turnkey to help with the hiring process.
A lingering question over MU’s search is whether there are reputational red flags surrounding the job, which has seen considerable turnover over the last decade. Heightened oversight from the UM System Board of Curators, the power of football coach Eli Drinkwitz and the downward career move of Reed-Francois to Arizona all factor into those questions.
Warranted or not, those concerns have been substantiated within athletics director circles. , a private news service oriented toward athletics administrators recently reported that “while oversight committees aren’t unheard of, the timing of the committee’s formation and then the sudden departure of Reed-Francois have industry sources taking notice.â€
That site highlighted the swirl of power between Choi, the Board of Curators, Drinkwitz and the athletics director as a spot of tension.
Indeed, Drinkwitz — who is entering his fifth year at the helm of the football program with a fresh contract — is a key part of for the MU athletics director role.
Crafting the position description was part of the contract between the search firm and the university, and it contains several interesting highlights that can hint at how Missouri wants to proceed.
Football, based on the description, is certainly a top priority. Among the six “leadership expectations†included is “(being) relentlessly focused on maximizing Mizzou’s future in the College Football Playoffs.â€
No other sport’s performance is specifically mentioned, including a men’s basketball program only a year removed from an NCAA Tournament and a women’s basketball team with some uncertainty over the future of its head coach.
The other five leadership expectations provide deeper insight into what MU is looking for in its next athletics director.
The new administrator will be expected to “create and implement innovative approaches to significantly increase revenue.†Mizzou athletics had generated a record amount of revenue during the 2023 fiscal year — the last full year of both Reed-Francois’ tenure and the most recent completed fiscal year, finishing in the black by a single dollar.
That revenue didn’t include money generated by the 2023 football season or a recent record $62 million anonymous donation — but did factor in roughly $22.8 million of directional institutional support, which includes loans from the academic side of the university to athletics.
Turnkey’s position description also expects the next Missouri AD to “provide regular reporting to President, Board and Board Committees on all topics related to athletics, as requested by those parties and in addition to regular scheduled periodic reporting in order to develop and execute on strategic priorities of MU Athletics.â€
The committee referenced there would seemingly be the Curators’ Mizzou Intercollegiate Athletics Special Committee, which is the oversight group at the heart of power questions.
That committee, created by a unanimous board vote in February, has the power to “obtain, monitor and gather†information related to finances, proposed renovations to athletics facilities and broader shifts in the college sports landscape.
“Fluency†in the name, image, likeness — or NIL — realm is mentioned as one of the qualifications for the job — as is “demonstrated integrity and deep and long-term commitment to Mizzou and Missouri.â€
MU will pay Turnkey $125,000 plus expenses for its services. The university’s search committee strongly resembles the group that hired Reed-Francois and includes Curators, prominent donors and UM System administrators — but no people of color or people with immediate athletics department ties.