Football, facilities upgrades and fundraising were some of the main talking points for Veatch and others.
Laird Veatch was introduced on Friday afternoon as the 22nd athletic director in Mizzou history at a ceremony in the Stephens Indoor Facility.
Veatch, most recently the athletic director at Memphis, returns to Columbia after working for Mizzou from 1997 to 2002 and 2003 to 2006. He stressed that he sees Mizzou as a dream job and doesn’t anticipate leaving again, tearing up multiple times as others spoke and during his speech.
“This was always it; we just didn’t know,” Veatch said. “To be clear, there is no transfer portal for the Veatch family.”
UM System President and MU Chancellor Mun Choi stated that the desire to stay in Missouri long-term was a priority for the search committee. Veatch is now the fifth athletic director for the Tigers since 2014.
“This was his dream job and he’s not going anywhere beyond this,” Choi said. “All of us deserve an AD that wants the job very much.”
The president said Veatch would bring a “linebacker’s ethos” to the job as a former Kansas State football player under Bill Snyder from 1990 to 1994. Veatch also worked in the Kansas State athletics department from 2010 to 2017, including serving as interim athletic director.
Both Veatch and Choi made it clear football would be the top priority under the new administration.
“There’s nothing more important than football success, particularly in this conference,” Veatch said in his introductory speech. He previously worked in the SEC at Florida from 2017 to 2019.
President Choi said he hopes athletics and financial success in football will have a trickle-down effect to other sports, citing Alabama as an example. Veatch echoed his sentiments.
“The best thing that can happen to our soccer program or our volleyball program, wrestling or whatever that may be, is for our football program to be highly successful so that we have the resources and the ability to reinvest back into other programs and continue to elevate the whole thing.”
The $250 million Faurot Field North End Zone renovations will be the first major project Veatch tackles, and he said fundraising will be a major focus of his responsibilities.
“I need to be more on the front line in the fundraising space and out in the community, and that’s where I can really help move the needle the most,” he said. “Revenue is the frontline of college athletics. We have to have that, and have to have those investments to compete.”
Veatch recently launched a $220 million football stadium renovation project at Memphis and was the lead manager of more than $210 million in new facility projects at Kansas State. He was also one of the athletic directors at the forefront with Name, Image and Likeness during his time at Memphis.
The school was one of the first in the country to hire an NIL director and recently announced a $25 million pledge over five years by FedEx for sponsorship deals with Memphis athletes. He hopes to explore similar opportunities at Mizzou.
“I believe that major corporate NIL support has got to be part of the solution to the future of college athletics,” Veatch said. He went on to state that while NIL collectives are a necessity, there needs to be a return closer to the originally intended model of direct sponsorships between athletes and businesses.
“I believe that is a more sustainable model,” he said. “So we’re going to need major corporations in the state of Missouri and beyond to invest in our student athletes that way.”
“We’re going to be seeking out all those 11 Fortune 500 companies in Missouri and then some,” Choi said.
Each speaker at the event made it clear they aimed to catapult the Tigers into the next tier of college athletics, with Veatch the hire to help them accomplish this goal. MU Board of Curators chairperson Robin Wenneker said she believes this day will be considered a “signature moment in the history of Mizzou athletics.”
“Mizzou has earned attention like never before. Our coaches and student-athletes have galvanized the support of Tiger nation and expectations are high,” Wenneker said. “That’s the environment AD Veatch is walking into, a time of transformation, and it is clear he is ready to go.”