I ran across an article on ESPN about now UNLV athletic director Desiree Reed-Francois, our former Deputy Athletic Director. Definitely a interesting insight into the life and progress of someone that played a big role in the changes we see now in our programs. Her perspective on athletes, especially with the note about the loss of Hokie wrestler Darren Hankins to the swimming accident in 2014, and her background with what drove her to become a sports administrator including her family is worth a read.
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Whit just keeps making great hires. Based on talking to them sunday and meeting them and seeing how they run things more and more of the lower tier office guys are going to keep moving up.
Announced that she is the new AD at Missouri, She is a rising star.
Holy thread necromancy, Batman!
Cool to see someone from the Babcock AD tree going places.
Would love to keep Whit past his 5 year extension, but if things go well at Missouri she would be a natural replacement if he leaves 🦃
Only the 2nd female AD at an SEC school.
Whit pics up phone, " Hey Dee, we go back a ways, got any of those SEC invites laying around?"
And now the AD at Arizona. I think she's an Alum but she has got to be crazy taking over that dumpster fire.
Expectations of an Athletic Director are a bit different that head coaches. She can potentially manage her way out of the dumpster fire and really make a name for herself.
Yes but you still need money which somehow they don't have any ($240 million short on a $100 million budget). They had coaches paying for sports equipment and meals for the teams. You have to either fundraise, or cut your spend. I'm not sure you can cut spend based on the above stories about coaches paying for things out of pocket unless you cut sports which is almost never favorable with anyone but very likely. The other option is lobbying the state for money, but that can't be favorable among most constituents either.
Or more likely, there is a ton of waste and misspent money. If you're $240M over a $100M budget and there isn't money for meals for the athletes, it mismanagement of resources. Not saying it's any easy fix, but finding and eliminating waste will go a long way to getting the department back in the black.
Also, it's no secret what the situation is there, so she knows what she's walking into. We don't know what she's walking away from at Missouri.
Sean Miller paid millions in cash to basketball recruits, but that's cool. Entitlement and all
Missouri did announce an oversight committee today for the athletic department so it's definitely not all roses there either.
There is definitely mismanagement. They had their CFO step down but continued paying them their same salary. A big portion for Arizona I think was a Covid loan from the university that they haven't been paying back as quickly as expected and. I think they also have Rich Rod and Kevin Sumlin buyouts in their balance sheets. I think the worst part is they are partially blaming it on stagnant tuition with increased student aid and overspending because they had no oversight over multiple years including prior to Covid.
It's going to be a hard job, but if she can turn it around then that will be a job for life for her I am guessing.
If she can turn it around cleanly, her name and reputation will be made!
Turning that around even with a few skeletons would still be impressive and get her on the short list of just about every opening.