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Missouri hires Desiree Reed-Francois as its new athletic director

By Chris Lee • 8/9/2021 in Football

Reed-Francois leaves UNLV to replace the retiring Jim Sterk

Reed-Francois photo courtesy of UNLV.

Missouri has tabbed UNLV's Desiree Reed-Francois to replace Jim Sterk as its athletics director. 

The university made the announcement on its website on Sunday. Reed-Francois had been in the same position at UNLV since 2017.

She becomes the first female AD ever at the university, and just the second after Vanderbilt's Candice Storey Lee. 

"This is a transformational day for Mizzou Athletics," Missouri president Mun Choi said. "Desiree Reed-Francois brings an unsurpassed passion for student-athletes and bold, visionary skills that will propel a championship culture at MU. As a proud member of the SEC, we are energized to go into the next era of Mizzou athletics with Desiree Reed-Francois at the helm."

Prior to UNLV, Reed-Francois served as the deputy athletics director at Virginia Tech and as a senior associate athletics director at the University of Cincinnati. Prior to that, she oversaw men's basketball at Tennessee, 

in addition to stints at the University of Tennessee, where she was the first woman to oversee men's basketball in the SEC and has also worked at California State University-Fresno, Santa Clara University, San Jose State University, the University of California Berkeley, and the University of San Francisco.  

This comes two weeks after Sterk announced his retirement. Sterk replaced Mack Rhoades in 2016 after Rhoades left to become Baylor's AD.  


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