HOOVER, Ala. _ Athletic director Mack Rhoades is leaving Missouri less than 15 months after taking the job and will accept the same position at embattled Baylor.
First reported by PowerMizzou.com, the stunning news broke Wednesday less than two hours before first-year football coach Barry Odom was to take the stage for his SEC Football Media Days debut.
Odom confirmed that Rhoades told him he was leaving.
"Mack and I had discussions last night," said Odom, whom Rhoades hired as football coach in December. "It was a long night. I wish him the best."
Asked if he was blindsided by the news, Odom said, "I was surprised, yeah," but he wasn't able to offer any insight into Rhoades' decision.
"We didn't get into that all," Odom said. "He said the decision had been made. We discussed it a little bit, but I didn't ask why. I didn't want to get into that."
Rhoades was considered a rising star in the athletic-administration world by the spring of 2015 when Mizzou lured him away from Houston _ where he'd made major facilities improvements and returned the football, basketball and baseball programs to prominence.
His brief tenure will be best remembered for the football team's boycott last November and Gary Pinkel's resignation less than a week later, one of the most tumultuous times in the history of Tigers athletics.
University of Missouri System President Tim Wolfe and MU Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin both resigned amid fallout from the racial protests on campus after the football team became involved.
It's unclear if those issues hastened Rhoades' departure from Columbia, Mo., where he said he'd hoped to retire during his introductory press conference.
Of course, Baylor is embroiled in a sexual-assault scandal that cost its football coach, president and athletic director their jobs.
"Everybody's got to make a decision on what they think is right for them, whether whatever school they're going to or whatever, it's not my job to evaluate that," Odom said.
Aside from the football boycott, the most significant decisions of Rhoades tenure were hiring Odom, retaining men's basketball coach Kim Anderson and replacing longtime baseball coach Tim Jamieson last month after extending his contract the previous June.
This spring, there were complaints against softball coach Ehren Earleywine, and Rhoades introduced former Southeast Missouri coach Steve Bieser as the Tigers' new baseball coach last week.
Now, Rhoads is gone.
"The timing, you're never going to control timing," Odom said. "Life's about opportunities and, for me, I've got an opportunity at Missouri to lead our program and now, our athletic department, I'm going to take ownership in that and make Mizzou the best place it can be. ... My focus is going to be on leading this program."
Missouri currently has something of a leadership vacuum. The system president and campus chancellor are both interim hires and several vacancies on the board of curators were filled on a provisional basis last month.
Without an athletic director, the Tigers seem to be in considerable turmoil, but Odom _ a 1999 Mizzou graduate, who has spent most of his coaching career on the Tigers' staff in various capacities _ isn't too worried about the school's future.
"I feel really strongly about where Mizzou is headed, moving forward," Odom said. "I feel strongly about our football program and what we're going to get done and get accomplished and the direction that we're going to have on campus in leadership.
"Mizzou's been around since 1839. There's been some good and some bad, and it's going to be around a whole lot longer than any of us are."
