COLUMBIA, Mo. — On the September day I went to meet the University of Missouri’s new athletic director, Desiree Reed-Francois, a fire alarm went off about when I approached Mizzou Arena.
The false alarm didn’t distract her from a gracious greeting outside and basically carrying forth. On the way back to her office after the all-clear, she stopped to engage a female student-athlete for several minutes.
This was just a snapshot, of course. But it suggested a woman immersed in the moment and undeterred by mere noise.
That scene came to mind after the Mizzou men’s basketball team recently was humbled 80-66 by the Kansas City Roos and sent many a fan into apoplexy over the loss under fifth-year coach Cuonzo Martin — an awe-inspiring man still seeking the first NCAA Tournament win of his MU tenure.
Because between this wobbly start to the men’s season (3-3 after a 61-55 loss to Wichita State on Friday night) and the fits-and-starts of second-year MU coach Eli Drinkwitz’s efforts to establish a foundation in football (6-6 overall, 3-5 Southeastern Conference after a 34-17 loss at Arkansas on Friday), it occurred to me that much of any AD’s job is knowing the difference between true and false alarms.
About how to absorb the sound and fury of her constituents and discern what signifies nothing from compelling testimony. And being able to negotiate the prevailing winds with a vision of the horizon.
To keep her head as others lose theirs while having the strength to change what should be changed … and the wisdom to know what’s fleeting and what’s real.
Countless calculations come with just that sliver of the job, complex considerations from the purely financial and won-loss ledgers and attendance to the integrity of leaders. From the broader experiences of the student-athletes to the pulse of fans and influential donors.
Some of those priorities may even contradict.
For those reasons and many more, it’s enormously challenging work that requires a dynamic and special sort of person to manage. And all indications are that Reed-Francois is just that, bearing the smarts, persona, background and character to steer MU through this flux.
Her journey, including personal tragedy, speaks to understanding the urgency of the immediate in the context of the big scheme of things. That acumen has helped define her life itself on the way to becoming Missouri’s first female AD, the first woman of Hispanic descent to lead a Power Five program and just the second woman to run a SEC program.
Maybe such trailblazing should be no surprise from a woman who was swimming with dolphins before she could walk since her father, Don Reed, was a diver at Marine World/Africa USA in Redwood Shores, California — adventures he wrote about in his book, “Notes From An Underwater Zoo.”
The flip side of that, she said, with a laugh, is that she’s clumsy out of water. But she’s been able to run marathons, she added, “because all that requires is just some grit and determination.”
In or out of the water, she learned young that she could create her own current … and currency.
By second grade, she decided she would become an attorney because of her elegant and strong Aunt Mary, whom she described as one of the first female law partners in San Diego. So, presto, after completing her undergraduate degree (and rowing) at UCLA, she earned her law degree at Arizona and became a practicing lawyer.
