Report: Missouri hires current Mountain West athletic director for vacant AD post
By Sydney Hunte
Published:
Missouri’s search for a new athletic director appears to be coming to a close.
According to Yahoo Sports college football reporter Pete Thamel, the university will name current UNLV athletic director Desiree Reed-Francois to the same position. Per Thamel, Mizzou will make an official announcement of the hiring within the next 24 hours.
It’s a return to the SEC for Reed-Francois, who served as deputy AD at Tennessee from 2009-2013 while serving as the men’s basketball program’s senior administrator. A 1994 graduate of UCLA, she has been with UNLV since 2017, and before that served as the deputy athletic director at Virginia Tech. While in Clarksburg, she had oversight of the football program. Prior to that, she was at Cincinnati, where she briefly served as interim AD, with stints at Cal, San Jose State, Santa Clara, Fresno State, and San Francisco preceding her time in Knoxville.
Reed-Francois will replace Jim Sterk, who was hired by Mizzou in 2016 but announced his departure in July with 2 years remaining on his contract.
Sydney is an Atlanta-based journalist who has covered everything from SEC and ACC football to MLS, the U.S. men's national soccer team and professional tennis. His work has appeared on such platforms as SB Nation, Cox Media Group and FanSided.
