By Bob Priddy, Missourinet contributing editor
(Leaving)—ESPN reports Mizzou is losing athletic director Desiree Reed-Francois to the University of Arizona. Arizona is joining the Big 12. Its athletic department reportedly has been struggling financially. Reed-Francois has been at Missouri for three years, has seen its fund-raising increase and has presided over development of coach Eliah Drinkwitz’s football team to national prominence and the hiring of basketball coach Dennis Gates.
Her departure might not be much of a surprise, given her track record of not staying very long at any school. Since moving into athletic department administration 24 years ago, she has worked at ten universities and now is moving to her eleventh.
Before coming to Missouri, Reed-Francois was at UNLV where, on April 30, 2021 she signed a four-year contract extension through 2026 with a salary raise to $420,000. A little more than three months later, she bolted to Missouri and reportedly signed a six-year contract at $800,000. Mizzou paid $500,000 to buy out her UNLV contract.
Her contract at Arizona is for five years.
She was the first woman athletic director in the Southeastern Conference.
It’s kind of a homecoming for her. She graduated from the law school at Arizona.
The athletic department has named Marcy Girton as interim AD. She’s the senior associate athletic director for football and has more than thirty years experience in athletic department administration. She once served as the COO of athletics at Auburn and again at South Carolina. She also was a football sport administrator at Texas A&M.
(More bad news)—Backup quarterback Sam Horn is going to miss all of the next football season. He’s had ligament surgery on his throwing arm. He’ll be out 12-15 months, putting him out of action for this year’s baseball season and at least part of next year’s baseball season and all of the Tiger Football season in 2024.
Missouri has another backup for Brady Cook in three-or-four-star recruit Aiden Glover who will join the team for the season this fall. He’s from Memphis, Tennessee.
(miz)—After going ohferJanuary, the Missouri Tigers are off to a good start of going oferFebruary.
They had a week to rest, recuperate, and regroup before taking on Ole Miss and it was same song 12th verse. Missouri led by ten in the second half, 54-44 then, as usual, forgot how to hit a field goal. Mississippi went on a 15-4 run to take back the lead. Missouri closed to within a bucket in the closing minutes but had to foul to get the ball. Mississippi hit its free throws and Missouri headed home 0-12 in the conference and losers of 14 of the last 15.
Six games are left in the regular season before the SEC Tournament. (zou)
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(THE SHOOTING)—It is a fact of American life that if there is a large crowd, there will be people with guns. And there is always the danger somebody will find an excuse to shoot someone. Two juveniles are in custody because they did just that during he Chiefs’ celebration of their Super Bowl win. One person was killed and 22 others were wounded and, as usual, there is no solution to such things with a political chance in Missouri.
The Chiefs players, friends, and team officials are raising money to help the victims. Travis Kelce and girlfriend Taylor Swift have donated $100,000 each to the fund. In her case, the money is earmarked for the family of Elizabeth Lopez-Galvan, the woman who was killed. His donation has gone to the Reyes family whose daughters, ten and eight years old, were wounded.
The Chiefs, the Hunt Foundation (the Hunts own the team) and the NFL have contributed $200,000 to a fund for the wounded. Patrick Mahomes and his wife, Brittany, also announced that they were contributing to the fund.
(CHIEFS)—Side stories continue to dribble out from the Chiefs’ Super Bowl win as the team looks at who should come back for a possible three-peat and who might have to go because of salary cap limitations.
One of the unrestricted free agents is guard Nick Allegretti, a seventh round pick in the 2019 draft. He has three Super Bowl rings, none tougher to win that the latest one when he had to fill in for starter Joe Thuney and who tore is ulnar collateral ligament (elbow) in the second quarter but playd all 79 snaps. Parick Mahomes called him, “the beast.”
As far as who is NOT going: Travis Kelce. At least, not until coach Andy Reid decides is time for him to call it a career. Kelce and Reid started together with the Chiefs. Reid is 65. Kelce is 34. Both have denied plans to leave this year. On his podcast last week, Kelce said, “I’m not playing for anyone else but Big Red. If he calls it quits, I’m out of there with him. He’s not, though.” Kelce missed a couple of games this year and still finished only 13 yards short of 1,000.
His backup this year was Noah Grey, who is two inches shorter and only ten pounds lighter. He’s ten years younger, had 28 receptions for 305 yards and a couple of touchdowns.
(BASEBALL)—One thing the new major league ballpark things have in common, beginning with Baltimore’s new stadium in 1992.
A skyline.
The Kansas City Royals want one, too. Two billion dollars worth bounded by Grand Boulevard, Locust Street, Truman Road and 17th Street, for those familiar with Kansas City. Royals owner John Sherman says it fits right into the culture. “The arts, the music, food and drink…I believe the timing is right for the Royals to become residents of the Crossroads District,” he said, saying it would be part of a “Golden Era” for Kansas City.
The project will include a KC version of St. Louis’s Ballpark Village, a conference center, corporate offices, residential and hotel properties, and the team’s corporate offices. Whether it happens will depend on voter support of a 3/8-cent sales tax increase that goes to voters on April 1.
The Royals and Red Sox reportedly pulled off a trade just as sprng training started. The Royals add to their bullpen with John Schreiber while the Red Sox get minor league pitcher David Sandlin. Schreiber is 29, a righty who made it to The Show in 2019 for one game. But he established his mound cred in 2022 with 64 appearances and a 0.985 WhIP and a 2.22 ERA. Last year, he was n 46 games and had an ERA of 3.86.
The Royals are giving up Sandlin, who had injury problems last year but still got into 14 games and finished the year with 87 strikeouts and a 3.51 ERA.
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Enough of the stick and ball stuff for now. Here’s stuff about people who deal with things that are twice as fast as a 100 mph fastball:
NASCAR’s season always starts with its premier race, the Daytona 500. IndyCar’s premier race is on Memorial Day Weekend. Formula One’s premier race in terms of glamour and tradition is considered the Monaco Grand Prix, also held in May, although this year’s Grand Prix of Las Vegas is expected to be a huge spectacle.
(DAYTONA 500)—The Daytona 500’s history of unpredictable finishes shaped by late major crashes has been lived out again, with a historic twist. William Byron and Alex Bowman celebrated the 40th anniversary of Hendrick Motorsports with a 1-2 finish, the first Daytona 500 victory for the sports’s winningest team since Dale Earnhardt Jr., led the field across the finish line in 2014.
Byron took the white flag as most of the rest of the field was crashing behind him, triggering a caution that froze the field. NASCAR had to review videos and timing-and-scoring data to determine the timing of the crash and the certainty that Byron had won. Byron’s victory came on the 40th anniversary, to the day, of the first win by HMS, a Daytona 500 victory by Jeff Bodine, one of six Hendrick Drivers to win NASCAR’s biggest race. It’s the ninth Daytona 500 championship, tying Petty Motorsports’ record.
(INDYCAR)—A major change in this year’s schedule—-
IndyCar has dropped a road race through the streets of Nashville as its concluding race this year and, instead, will finish the year on the oval in the nearby city of Lebanon. The 1.33-mile track will give the series six oval races in the last eight races, undoubtedly pleasing series fans who think ovals are always better than street or road courses. It’s the first time IndyCar will finish the season on an oval since 2014.
One of the oval races late in the season will be at Worldwide Technology Raceway across the river from St. louis. Two others will be at the Iowa Speedway, another reasonable drive for IndyCar fans from Missouri.
Another is in Milwaukee, another daytrip for some Missourians.
And don’t forget the Indianapolis 500, easily worth a couple of nights in motels going to or coming from, if needed.
IndyCar starts on a street course March 10—St. Petersburg.
(FORMULA 1)—F1 opens at Bahrain next weekend.