COLUMBIA, Mo. — The break’s over, so when’s the takeover?
Spring break has ended at the University of Missouri, but the school’s search for a new athletics director is very much continuing. There are plenty of questions still rippling around the process, and the onset of April brings about another one: Is this the month Mizzou gets its next AD?
That’s a rhetorical question for most, save perhaps MU’s 11-member search committee and Turnkey ZRG, the executive search firm hired by the university.
When that tandem elects to proceed is its own decision. Patience, so far, has been the approach since Desiree Reed-Francois left Missouri for Arizona’s AD gig on Feb. 19.
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As a slow mover — prudently or foolishly — in the athletics director hiring realm, Mizzou is part of a two-pronged trend in college sports administration circles. So far this year, there have been opposing timelines for searches and hirings: the blistering and the gradual.
It’s Aesopian in that way — there are tortoises and there are hares. The Tigers are among those with a shell.
Six Power Five conference athletics departments have found themselves looking for new leaders since the start of 2024, and they’ve operated on quite different timelines.
Texas A&M was the first domino to fall in the train of athletics director openings. Ross Bjork left College Station for Ohio State in mid-January. The Aggies went the route that Mizzou is going, hiring the same search firm, Turnkey.
A&M’s search lasted just under two months, ending with the hiring of Trev Alberts from Nebraska. That, in turn, created an opening at Nebraska. There, an interim university president spearheaded a search that lasted less than a week, using Parker Executive Search, a past MU partner, for help. Troy Dannen, barely settled into his new gig at Washington, was hired — and he requested an immediate start date.
Washington’s ensuing opening was an interesting one, given that Dannen had just been hired in October and overseen an eventful 5½ months in charge. The Huskies also paired up with Parker for another search, and it didn’t take long. They poached Pat Chun from Washington State in another process that lasted less than a week — quick hiring work once again.
Chun’s departure created one of two remaining Power Five openings besides Missouri, though placing Washington State — one of the two Pac-12 programs left out of that conference’s realignment dispersal — on the same tier as the Tigers isn’t quite fair.
Outside of that train of exits and hirings was the move that most directly impacted Mizzou: Arizona’s hiring of Reed-Francois, which came about a month after the financially troubled athletics department ousted its former AD.
Now, the list of open Power Five athletics director jobs includes:
- MU, which boasts Southeastern Conference participation but also faces some questions regarding power structures and, still, Reed-Francois’ exit.
- Washington State, which also needs a men’s basketball coach and faces an uncertain future following the collapse of the Pac-12.
- Arizona State, which has been AD-less since mid-November and might shift to a different financial and operational model at the direction of its university president.
It’s far too early to say whether the weeklong or monthslong searches have produced better results. And in Mizzou’s case, the national picture of processes doesn’t matter.
What’s important at MU is finding the right athletics director — a descriptor so obvious that it’s essentially meaningless. Once again, it’s the search committee’s discretion that will craft the prospective definition of what’s “right,” though some early priorities for the future AD have emerged.
And to a certain extent, the time a search takes is only a number. Would there be much of a difference for Mizzou’s operation if the university hired its next athletics director on, say, Monday versus next Wednesday? On April 1 versus May 1?
The chance at securing any advantage that comes from a quick hiring has disappeared from even the rearview mirror: The two major ongoing storylines for Mizzou athletics are at stages that won’t be particularly shaped by the date of an AD hiring.
With one month left in the college basketball transfer portal window, firing women’s hoops coach Robin Pingeton and hiring a replacement would likely take the eventual new athletics director too long for that program to salvage the offseason. It still could happen, but that Pingeton remains in place suggests the interim administration won’t be making that particular move. At this point, the new AD might find his or her hands tied by the time frame of the basketball offseason.
More details on the proposed renovations of Memorial Stadium’s north concourse are expected to come up at the UM System Board of Curators’ April 18 meeting, based on the time frame of previous actions on that project. That process has continued without Reed-Francois, and even if a new AD is on campus in time for that meeting, that person likely will need a hefty briefing and not be able to play a significant role.
Of course, those inside and outside the athletics department probably would rather see a new boss walk through the doors sooner rather than later — at a certain point, a drawn-out search process becomes problematic, not patient.
Where that point on the timeline is remains to be seen. With the AD hiring hares already finished, a black-and-gold tortoise is trekking along the path to a contract and checkered flag in hopes that it can call its pace and process a win.