University of Missouri officials announced Tuesday that a committee of 11 people will search for a new athletic director, and that recruitment firm Turnkey/ZRG has been hired to assist the process.
Local ABC affiliate KRCG reported Wednesday that at least one ethics expert sees the potential for a conflict of interest in the Turnkey/ZRG hire, given that Mizzou men's basketball coach Dennis Gates’ wife Jocelyn is the vice-president of College and Coaching Practice at the firm. She joined the firm in 2022 shortly after Dennis Gates was hired at MU, the Columbia Missourian reported.
As reported by KRCG, Don Heider, ethics professor and the executive director of the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University in California, argued there could be a potential conflict of interest even if Jocelyn Gates was not a part of the search.
“If somebody is unhappy with something the new athletic director does, especially in regards to the men’s basketball program, they’re going to point to this as an issue," said Heider, as reported by KRCG's Mark Slavit. "When you hire somebody as important as an athletic director, you want them to come in and have a great start. To have this cloud on the horizon is not what I consider to be a great start.”
Heider said Mizzou’s next athletic director would oversee Dennis Gates’ job security. He further suggested that MU officials should put someone outside of the university on the search committee as a safeguard. “They could put them on the search committee, not necessarily as a voting search committee member, but just to observe and make sure that all the T’s are crossed, and I’s are dotted and there is no undue influence.”
MU spokesperson Christian Basi insisted there was no conflict of interest. Basi sent KRCG a statement that said, “Turnkey/ZRG has confirmed Ms. Jocelyn Gates would not be involved in any part of the Mizzou athletic director search.”
University leaders have not a set deadline for hiring a new athletic director to replace Desiree Reed-Francois, who departed last month to fill the same position at Arizona.
