Arizona athletic director Desireé Reed-Francois may not have expected to be hiring a women’s golf head coach this year, but she knew what she wanted when the time came.
“When we started out on this process of selecting a new women’s golf coach, we sought to hire a coach of high character, low ego, high output, and high energy,” Reed-Francois said.
She thinks they found it in new women’s golf head coach Giovana Maymon, who was introduced as the Wildcats’ new coach on Monday afternoon. Maymon comes to Tucson after three years as an assistant coach at Texas A&M and two years as a graduate assistant at South Alabama.
Maymon had been on Reed-Francois’ radar for a while. The Arizona AD, who has now hired two new coaches in just four months on the job, noticed Maymon when she was still the AD at Missouri. Now, she had to decide if she wanted to go with a first-time head coach or go after someone who had experience at that level. Reed-Francois turned to one of the most storied coaches in Arizona sports history, Rick LaRose.
“I called Coach LaRose when we were in the final stages, and I said when you were part of that process that hired Coach Laura (Ianello)…tell me a little bit…about sitting head coach versus up-and-coming absolute star and tell me about that process.”
In the end, it was the up-and-comer who has just three years of experience as a paid assistant coach. Other things outweighed her lack of head coaching experience.
“While we had a great pool, a great process, she stood out,” Reed-Francois said. “Her energy, her enthusiasm, her recruiting prowess—she is a recruiting machine—her ability to connect…[S]he is a rising star in this industry. She is a well-respected coach, and I’m excited about the future and the trajectory of Arizona women’s golf.”
While Maymon may not have experience as a head coach, her experience in golf is extensive. Her entire family is involved in the game in her native México. Her grandmother was the head of the Mexican women’s golf federation. Her sister played collegiately at TCU.
“I started playing golf when I was three,” Maymon said.
She also has ties to historic figures in Arizona women’s golf, particularly former Wildcat great and world No. 1 Lorena Ochoa.
“I called her when I got the job,” Maymon said. “And I got on the phone, I was like, ‘Guess what? I know I told you I was going through the interview process, but I actually got it and I’m gonna be the next head coach!’ And she was just speechless. She was like, I can’t believe it. It’s amazing. You’re gonna do a great job bringing the Mexican roots back into the program.”
Others have helped her on the journey to becoming a head coach at a young age, as well, including Texas A&M head coach Gerrod Chadwell. It started when she was in college, though. She especially credited Jay Goble, her head coach at Baylor, where she helped the team finish as NCAA runner-up her senior year in college.
“I started being super competitive in the college world there,” Maymon said. “My coaching experience and my love for the coaching world came from him, too, and how he brought me to the college world…[H]e’s a great mentor. I talked to him through this whole process, getting him to help me through the process.”
She also looked back on the mentorship of Mike McGraw, the men’s golf coach at Baylor.
“He’s my probably my hero in the coaching world,” Maymon said. “The way he handles student-athletes. He puts the student-athlete before anything, before results, before championships, but he’s done a great job of that and that’s a great message for me.”
The relationship with student-athletes was something both Reed-Francois and Maymon came back to on several occasions. Despite her young age, Maymon talked about wanting to fill a role that included a parental feeling as well as that of a head coach.
“For me, everything’s about the team and the hard work and the passion, and there’s never going to be a question that I could have done a little bit more for these kids,” Maymon said. “I just want to be a mom, a head coach, everything for them here. That support that they truly need in these days.”
Ultimately, it all comes back to success in competition, though. As the last Arizona team to win a national title, women’s golf already has the things in place to be successful. That gives Maymon a leg up in her young coaching career.
“Having the call from Desireé was an honor,” Maymon said. “It was, ‘Of course I’m interested!’ I want to come here. I’m gonna do everything I can to be the future of these programs. This is a program that you can win. And for me that was my first thing. It was like I’m coming into a program that is great thanks to the coaches. Coach Laura did a great job here and it’s an honor to follow her legacy. But, yeah, I mean it’s it’s a great program. You can do so many great things here. You have the facilities, you have the support, you have the family, you have the golf courses, the team. So I’m really excited to be here and I think great things are to come.”