When Desiree Reed-Francois left her position as the athletic director at Missouri to take the same role at Arizona, one question loomed above all others — why?
Why did a sitting and successful SEC athletic director leave that enviable perch to go to a financially troubled athletic department that's not in one of college athletics' two major conferences?
As Reed-Francois has described it, the decision was deeply personal.
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At an introductory news conference Tuesday , Reed-Francois said leaving Missouri for Arizona was an "opportunity to come home." Reed-Francois has ties to Arizona, having graduated from the university's law school in 1997.
"It's home. Just quite simply it's home," she said. "I got a little bit emotional at the podium because this is a heart move. This is a move that I know what the University of Arizona can be. I know there are challenges. … My skillset meets what I believe the University of Arizona needs at this time, this very important time. It just felt right."
The emotional connection with Arizona extends beyond simply earning a degree from there.
During her time in law school, Reed-Francois' younger brother, Roman Reed — a junior-college football player in Florida at the time — was paralyzed.
"Amidst the chaos and uncertainty, the University of Arizona extended a compassionate hand providing support when I needed it the most," she said Tuesday. "I'm forever grateful, the kindness that was shown to me during that time. And now during this challenging time, it's my privilege and my duty to give back and help guide the athletic department forward."
Since being hired away from UNLV in August 2021, Reed-Francois made a sizable impact on the Missouri athletic department.
She hired men's basketball coach Dennis Gates in 2022 and signed football coach Eli Drinkwitz to a lucrative extension in December 2023. In her 2 ½ years in Columbia, she hired six coaches. Under her watch, the athletic department initiated steps for improvements to 98-year-old Memorial Stadium and received a record $62 million donation from an anonymous donor on Feb. 5 that more than doubled the previous largest financial gift.
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At Arizona, Reed-Francois will be making a base salary of $1 million in her first year, and it will rise to $1.2 million by her fifth year. Additionally, she'll get a $250,000 annual contribution from the University of Arizona Foundation. According to the terms of a contract extension she signed in April 2023, she made a total of $1.25 million annually at Missouri, with a $900,000 base salary and $350,000 in non-salary compensation.
She'll take over an athletic department at a school in financial turmoil . In recent years, the university has loaned the athletic department $86 million, which university president Robert Robbins has publicly acknowledged might not get paid back. In the 2023 fiscal year, the Arizona athletic department overspent by $32 million.
Reed-Francois likely won't have to make head-coaching hires in the major-revenue sports — football coach Brent Brennan was hired last month and successful men's basketball coach Tommy Lloyd inked a five-year extension on Monday — but she'll have other, more significant challenges to navigate.
"I haven't met very many athletic departments that say, 'Hey, we've got so much money we don't know what to do with it,'" she said. "This is not a problem that's incredibly unique, but what we have to do is just be very diligent in our approach and very thoughtful. Let's listen and let's learn and let's analyze, put together the best plan and move forward."
This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Desiree Reed-Francois left Missouri AD job for Arizona. Here's why
