Mizzou Board addresses the athletic director questions

Fifty-nine days into Missouri’s search to replace Desiree Reed-Francois as its Director of Athletics, those responsible for filling the position spoke about it publicly for the first time on Thursday. Following the Board of Curators meeting in Rolla, members of the board and University System President Mun Choi took questions from the media.

Paramount among the questions every has right now are these: Why has the search taken so long and when is it going to be over? Curator Bob Blitz addressed those in a statement before the questions were even asked.

"It’s not a long time. When somebody looks at something and says why is it taking so long, it depends on your perspective on things,” Blitz said. “My guess is we’re getting close.”

Blitz said the search committee received a number of applications. “It seems like everybody would like to be an athletic director in the SEC.”

Well, not quite everybody, apparently.

Reed-Francois left to take the same job at the University of Arizona, heading an athletic department in serious debt as it leaves its historic home in the PAC-12 for the Big 12 Conference. It left Mizzou searching for its fourth AD in a decade since Mike Alden left after a 17-year tenure. That seems high, especially for an athletic department in what is unquestionably one of the two most desirable conferences in the country.

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“There's always time for reflection to ask, What can we do?” Choi said when asked if there are things that need to change on Mizzou’s end to retain the next athletic director. “There's an understanding from both the ad and university administration and the board about what is expected. I believe we're gonna have an AD that's gonna be here for the long run. But we're always going to reflect on when when people leave the university and learn.”

CollegeAD reported last week that Missouri was moving on to the interview phase of the process. It seems a hire should be coming relatively soon. And maybe it doesn’t matter that much? Interim AD Marcy Girton was present on Thursday as the board approved a $250 million renovation project to Memorial Stadium. All present praised her, the Board of Curators, Choi and head coach Eli Drinkwitz for pushing the project across the finish line after what Drinkwitz called “a disruption.”

“With strong leadership by the board and our President, we took the opportunity to improve our situation and deliver what I consider to be a big dream and a bold investment,” Drinkwitz said.

But ultimately, Mizzou still needs an athletic director. Who will it be? That’s still completely unknown at least to anybody that isn’t on the search committee. Blitz did address the characteristics being sought.

“Number one on the list is the ability to raise money,” he said. “Athletics today, as you know, are more expensive than they've ever been. And it's going up. So we need somebody who really knows fundraising knows how to recruit people. to fundraise things like that.”

That’s boilerplate language, along with the idea that Missouri is seeking someone who wants to win championships. Those are the top two qualifications for every AD search that has ever existed. But Blitz also referenced someone who “wants to live in Columbia” and “gets along with the board and gets along with the administration.”

Those are things that were at least veiled references to Reed-Francois. Tension between her and the Board and Curators—and her and the football coach—were not exactly state secrets upon her departure. Missouri wants someone who wants to be at Missouri.

Where the blame lies for Reed-Francois (and before her Mack Rhoades) not wanting to be at Missouri is up for debate. Each situation is different, but through constant turnover, Missouri’s board has been assigned a reputation as somewhere between meddling and power-hungry. In the interest of full disclosure, I’ve done my part in assigning some of it. In the fall, the Board of Curators formed a Intercollegiate Athletics Special Committee, consisting of four of the nine board members, to monitor athletic department finances and spending. Some have speculated that formation played a major role in Reed-Francois’ departure.

“Boards across the nation at every University are taking more interest and more activity in the in the athletic performance because the athletics are becoming so complex with money and NIL and the portal, and the the ticket prices and just the whole brand new universe,” Blitz said. “It is not unusual that either a special committee is formed or that at a liaison is directed to the athletic committee from the board, or the board itself takes this. 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.”

Blitz was adamant the board’s responsibilities don’t go beyond that.

“We don't have specific knowledge,” Blitz said. “We don't know how to run an athletic department. We don't know how to run a hospital. So what we do is we get experts, experts in those fields. And we hire with them and they give us data.

“We’re not trying to pick coaches, we’re not trying to do those types of things. We’re trying to make sure that the athletic department is running on a financially responsible way and doing the best they can, that they hav the best methods to raise money.”

“Nine of us trying to work on this even routinely is cumbersome,” Board chair Robin Wenneker added. “So we took it to four.”

The other issue that has been of much debate about the old AD while Missouri searches for a new one is Reed-Francois’ buyout. Missouri was owed $3 million when she chose to leave according to her contract that ran through 2028. Reports out of Arizona indicated her new employer would pay half of that while Reed-Francois was responsible for either paying the other half or getting it reduced or forgiven by Mizzou.

“I can tell you the athletic committee is not getting involved in that,” Blitz said. “That’s strictly a contract issue.”

Choi made the second option appear off the table.

“We do have a contract and we do expect the terms of that to be honored,” he said.

That was the only question that was really answered on Thursday in terms of Missouri’s search for a new athletic director. It feels as if the search is nearing its conclusion, but what that conclusion will be is still very much up in the air.