Mizzou athletics is going through a real changing of the guard this week. Deputy AD, COO and senior woman administrator Marcy Girton is stepping away in mid-August, and the school has already lined up her successor before she's even cleared out her office.
Pete Thamel broke the news that Girton is retiring after more than 3 years at Mizzou and over 4 decades in the business.
Industry news at Missouri: Deputy AD/COO/SWA Marcy Girton will retire in mid-August after more than three years of service to Mizzou Athletics and career spanning more than four decades in college athletics.
Girton's Missouri tenure was short on paper but heavy on responsibility. She joined in 2023, took on sport administrator duties for football and softball, steered the department's NIL and revenue-sharing rollout, and even ran the show as interim athletics director during Mizzou's leadership transition in 2024. That's the kind of resume that gets built over 4 decades bouncing through jobs at South Carolina and Texas A&M before landing in Columbia.
Missouri didn't wait around to fill the vacancy. The replacement is Bryan Maggard, who's currently the athletic director at Louisiana and was just named to the College Football Playoff selection committee. It's a homecoming of sorts — Maggard spent 22 years at Mizzou earlier in his career before taking over the Ragin' Cajuns program in 2017.
Pete Nakos was first to report Louisiana AD Bryan Maggard is headed to Missouri as deputy AD, fresh off his CFP committee appointment.
Missouri has hired Louisiana AD Bryan Maggard as deputy AD. Recently named to CFP selection committee.
At Louisiana, Maggard didn't just keep the lights on — he oversaw what's reportedly the most successful fundraising stretch in the department's history, pulled in a $15 million naming-rights gift, and got the $65 million Our Lady of Lourdes Stadium renovation across the finish line. That's the operator Mizzou is bringing back into the building.
Thamel followed up with the official title: Maggard slides in as Deputy Athletics Director/COO.
Missouri also is hiring Louisiana VP for Intercollegiate Athletics Dr. Bryan Maggard as Deputy Athletics Director/COO.
Timing matters here. Missouri just landed a seat at the CFP selection table through Maggard right as the sport heads deeper into the revenue-sharing era, where COOs are basically running mini front offices inside athletic departments. Swapping in a guy with committee-level access and a track record of closing 8-figure gifts, while a proven administrator walks out the door, is Mizzou betting the next chapter of Tigers athletics needs a different kind of operator than the last one.