Interim Mizzou athletic director Wren Baker expected to leave for North Texas

Two weeks after its athletic director abruptly resigned, Missouri is set to lose its interim athletic director, Wren Baker, by the end of the week.

Baker is the leading candidate for the vacant athletic director job at North Texas and is expected to be offered the position Friday when the school’s board of regents meets, a source told The Star.

The University of North Texas System Boards of Regents has convened “a Special Called meeting by telephone” at 1 p.m. Friday to discuss “consideration of individual personnel matters related to the appointment of and an employment agreement with a UNT Athletic Director.”

At that meeting, Baker is expected to be hired as Rick Villarreal’s successor. Villarreal stepped down in May after 15 seasons with the Mean Green, which included the construction of Apogee Stadium for $78 million in 2011.

Baker was hired in May 2015 as Missouri’s deputy athletic director under Mack Rhoades, who resigned July 13 to accept the same post at Baylor.

After Rhoades’ departure, MU interim chancellor Hank Foley made Baker interim athletic director despite the fact that Baker already had been contacted by a search firm representing North Texas about its opening, multiple sources told The Star. Baker’s anticipated departure will leave Missouri without an athletic director for the second time this month.

An email to Foley’s office Wednesday went unanswered, but it’s likely the Tigers now will turn to one of four executive associate athletic directors — Sarah Reesman, Tim Hickman, Bryan Maggard or Mary Ann Austin — on an interim basis.

There is no timetable for hiring Rhoades’ full-time replacement, but it’s a process that could drag into next year.

The University of Missouri System still has an interim president, Mike Middleton, and the MU campus has an interim chancellor, Foley, after former president Tim Wolfe and former chancellor R. Bowen Loftin resigned last November amid racial tension and protests on the Columbia campus.

The University of Missouri System Board of Curators is expected to pare down its list of finalists for a new president and begin conducting interviews next month, multiple sources told The Star.

The goal is to have new president in place by October and a new chancellor by the end of the year, a timetable that might prove ambitious.

It also complicates the search for an athletic director.

“I don’t think you have to have those positions filled first, but it would certainly help any potential candidate interviewing for an athletic director spot to know who their boss would be,” said Jon Sundvold, who was appointed to the Board of Curators last month. “That seems to make sense, but it doesn’t have to happen that way. If they’ve got a good candidate, who’s solid as an athletic director, I don’t think there’s any rule.”

Sundvold, a graduate of Blue Springs High, has become a popular choice among fans to become Mizzou’s next athletic director. He is not part of Foley’s search committee, which will allow him to be considered for the job.

“I told Chancellor Foley that I would visit at some time about it,” Sundvold said. “Obviously, I own a business and I am a curator, so either one — or both of those — could keep me from being athletic director. But those discussions could be had if the committee decided to have those.”

Becoming athletic director would be a stark departure from his role as president of Sundvold Capital Management, an investment advisory firm in Columbia.

Of course, it’s his business experience and ties to Mizzou — Sundvold was a star basketball player in the early 1980s and also serves as a college basketball analyst for ESPN — that fuel his popularity among fans.

But it’s far from a slam dunk.

Sundvold was appointed by Gov. Jay Nixon in June and is a voting member of the curators, but his appointment remains provisional pending confirmation when the Missouri Senate reconvenes in January.

Curators — as well members of the Missouri General Assembly and other elected or appointed state officials — are barred from employment at MU during their term and for two years after that term ends, according to Chapter 320.115 of the University of Missouri System’s collected rules and regulations.

The rule could be waived or changed to accommodate Sundvold, who said he isn’t campaigning for the job but is willing to listen if he emerges as a serious candidate for the athletic director vacancy.

It’s unclear, though, how comfortable the board would be suspending such a rule even in this extraordinary instance.

Sundvold said he doesn’t have a checklist in mind for the new athletic director, but he thinks prior ties with Mizzou could be helpful.

Third-year Tigers men’s basketball coach Kim Anderson agreed.

“I think that’s important, but I don’t think it’s a deal-breaker,” Anderson said. “But I do think that, given the current climate, it would be an advantage for someone who had knowledge of the university. That doesn’t mean you had to go to school here or that he worked here, but someone who understands our university, understands what a great school it is and someone that is representative of our state.”

Foley said Mizzou has hired Todd Turner, the founder and president of Collegiate Sports Associates, to assist in the search for a new athletic director.

MU paid Korn Ferry $200,000 plus out-of-pocket/travel expenses in 2015 for its role in n identifying and hiring Rhoades from the University of Houston.

This story was originally published July 27, 2016 at 5:35 PM with the headline "Interim Mizzou athletic director Wren Baker expected to leave for North Texas."