Desireé Reed-Francois

VP & Director of Athletics

University of Arizona

By Steve Rivera

When Desireé Reed-Francois was a little girl, she wanted to be the first female general manager in the National Football League for her beloved San Francisco 49ers.

First, however, she wanted to be a lawyer from the time she was in second grade, in hopes of emulating a great aunt.

“She was this elegant, well-dressed woman,” she said. “I remember asking my mother, ‘What does Aunt Mary do?’”

An attorney, she said. And so, there it all began.

It was the mid-1980s and more than a decade later, Reed-Francois earned her law degree from the University of Arizona in 1997.

Twenty-seven years later – with stints in the NFL, at Virginia Tech, Cincinnati, Tennessee, UNLV and Missouri – she’s now the VP and Director of Athletics at Arizona. She’s come full circle.

Her journey here came from Arizona’s late, great Cedric Dempsey, who said she should set her sights on being an AD 22 years ago.

“I said, can women even do that?” she said she asked Dempsey, with a slight laugh. Back then, there were only two, one of whom was former North Carolina State AD Debbie Yow.

Now, there are six in the major conferences.

“Cedric was instrumental in sharing what I could do,” she said. “And Debbie painted a picture of what I could be.”

In her first year at UA, she was tasked to reign in a $34 million deficit in the UA athletic department. She says they are at about $5 million right now with the “expectation in 2026 there will be a balance.”

“It’s been one of stabilizing the athletic department, building a team, clarifying where we’re headed, and really coming together in the most transformative time in recent colleges sports history,” she said of the first year. “Our responsibility was to stabilize and build that foundation for the future. Our team has done an exceptional job with that, but we have a lot of work to do. This is only year one of a long journey. There is a lot more work to be done.” 

She will be the one to guide them.

“I don’t know if I find that there’s a bigger responsibility because of the role that I have,” she said. “I just know that I am just like everybody else −care deeply and work really hard. I try to create that culture for others to achieve their best.”