Sunday Sit-down with Mizzou Athletic Director Desiree Reed-Francois

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

ABC 17 Sports Director Nathalie Jones brought on Mizzou Athletic Director Desiree Reed-Francois in this week's edition of Sunday Sit-down.

The pair sat down in MU's new Stephens Indoor Practice Facility to discuss the momentum surrounding Tiger athletics ever since Reed-Francois came to Columbia, in Aug. 2021.

"It starts with your people," she said. "You want to win within. You want to get the right people in the right spaces. You want to create belief. Belief in, not only where we're going, but belief in one another, belief in themselves. You got to build some confidence. Then, it's about execution and then a constant evolution, whether it's name, image and likeness, whether it's facilities...whether it's hiring the right coaches, putting the excellence around your program is critically important, but...it's always going to be about your people."

Through the fall sports season, a couple of coaches on campus have garnered national attention. Tiger football coach Eli Drinkwitz not only led his team to a 10-2 year and a Cotton Bowl berth, but earned the SEC Coach of the Year title for his work.

Reed-Francois gave Coach Eli a contract extension in his third season at the helm in Columbia, before the Top-10 season he had in year four. She said Drinkwitz has always made quite an impression on her, even from the very first time they met.

"It was actually on my son's recruiting visit for for basketball and we ran into to coach Drinkwitz," Reed-Francois said. "He just has this wonderful ability to bring people together...and it's genuine."

Reed-Francois brought on another eventual SEC coach of the year, in Dec. 2022. Volleyball head coach Dawn Sullivan took the reigns of a Tiger team with a collective four conference wins over two seasons. In one year in charge, she brought that storied program back to the NCAA Tournament and more than quadrupled the team's conference win total.

Sullivan and Reed-Francois were no strangers coming onto MU's campus, as the pair worked together at Reed-Francois' last home, UNLV. Reed-Francois spoke of the moment that she and the volleyball team found out that they had made the Big Dance for the first time since 2020.

"I was just so proud of her. I had a young lady on that team [come up to me] and she said, you know, I love my sport again and she came up to me and she thanked me for that," Reed-Francois said. "I said don't thank me, thank Coach Sullivan and thank everybody around this program."

Mizzou will look to see the same kind of success in winter and spring action, as the 2023-24 school year continues.

There are also big things coming to MU on the construction front. On Friday, Mizzou Athletics announced that it will be using DLR, a Kansas City-based architecture firm, for the upcoming improvement to Memorial Stadium's north end zone. You can find a list of the expected updates below.

• Premium Seating Component
• Improved and Modernized Food and Beverage Concessions
• New Restroom Facilities
• New Stadium Gateway and Gate System
• Open-Air Observation Decks
• Improved Wayfinding and Graphics
• Retail Outlets
• Team Recruiting Room
• New and Enhanced North End Zone Scoreboard
• Preservation of Rock "M" at the North End Zone

Reed-Francois said that upgrades like the Stephens Indoor Practice Facility, the renovations that have been done inside of Devine Pavilion and even the north end zone upgrades are all important aspects of competing in the Southeastern Conference.

"We got to keep raising the bar, right? We're in the recruiting business and we want our not only our fans to feel that this is a place of excellence, but also our current student athletes. I can't control what goes on in the swimming pool, on the field or on the courts...but what we can do is provide excellence around our programs," she said.

You can watch ABC 17 Sports Director Nathalie Jones' full conversation with Reed-Francois on SportsZone at 9:30 on Fox 22 and 10:30 on ABC 17.