Whether it was selling real estate, coaching cheerleaders at SMU, promoting authors through the University Press at TCU or directing communications at The King's University, Jovan Overshown kept thinking that there was a piece of the puzzle missing.

"I remember going through a period of time where I was praying, `OK, Lord, is there something I'm not processing? Can I not be happy at a job?''' she said. "I enjoyed SMU, but obviously I don't want to coach long-term. So, I always felt like there was some part of the puzzle that I was missing."

What she was missing was that euphoria and excitement that comes from athletics, something that had played such a huge part in her life as a cheerleader from junior high through her undergraduate days at TCU.

She wanted to be back in that world.

"I always go back to that it's a total God thing, because something in my spirit said it," said Overshown, Baylor's Associate Athletics Director for Engagement. "It made no sense, it's completely illogical. But, I thought, `Is this why there hasn't been fulfillment? Is this why I didn't enjoy my experience at TCU, because I wasn't part of that excitement that I came out of? Is that why I enjoyed SMU, because I was part of that.'''

At the same time, Overshown is convinced that God got her prayers crossed with her husband, Billy, a former TCU running back and longtime high school coach who is working on his master's degree in sports management.

Married for five years, they write daily confessionals and desires on their bathroom mirror.

"He wasn't quite clear on what his path looked like, but he had things written down like being in athletic administration, being an athletic director," Jovan said. "I remember reading his one morning and thinking, `Could this be for me?'''

That's why she even applied for the Baylor position when it was posted last spring.

"I looked at three or four places, and I remember feeling such a peace about Baylor," she said. "I just thought, `Well, this is the biggest shot in the dark. This is a pipe dream, but what do I have to lose?'''

Not only did she get an interview, Overshown was hired for the new external leadership position and started on May 1. She oversees fan engagement (formerly marketing), strategic communications, athletic communications and spirit & traditions.

"I think sometimes we sell ourselves short of opportunities because it's not the path that's been charted or logically we can't process it or make sense of it," she said. "Every day, I'm just so immensely grateful, because I know this is exactly where I'm supposed to be. It's a cool place, it's great people, and I'm so incredibly grateful that Doug (McNamee) or Jeremiah (Dickey) or Mack (Rhoades) -- whoever had a part in the decision -- were willing to give somebody that doesn't look like what you would expect a chance."

While she admits the job has had its share of challenges over the last six months, learning as she goes, "I like the fact that I came from the outside to some degree, because I'm not looking through the same lens on everything."

Born in Columbia, Mo., Overshown moved to Dallas when she was 2 months old when her dad, David Farris, got a job with Baylor Hospital.

At Lake Highlands High School, she was involved in cheerleading and gymnastics and balanced it out with the National Honor Society and Math Society, "all the totally nerd stuff," she said.

She had to drop gymnastics because "it got to be too much with that and cheer."

"I was just over-committed," she said. "My core group of friends, we did club or all-star cheer, plus all the things at school, I was just overextending myself. I was decent at gymnastics, but I knew it wasn't going to be something I was going to pursue long-term. That's just how my group of friends and really everyone at our school where, we were just involved in a lot. It was just our normal."

At TCU, she continued with the cheerleading and was part of teams that competed at College Nationals. "We weren't the top team, by any means," she said, "but we were competitive."

"I jokingly say that that was kind of like my sorority," Overshown said. "Without it, I don't know that I would have really had that full experience. Even looking back, and working at different places, just being in that environment, preparing for game day, just the whole routine of getting ready and celebrating victories and even going through losses, that was so much of the experience of college for me."

It was in Fort Worth where Jovan met her husband, Billy, who's in his first year as the head track and assistant football coach at Waco High School.

"I would see him on the plane, but we had strict instructions not to talk to any of the athletes," Jovan said. "We knew of each other in passing and through other friends, but we didn't actually formally talk until his senior year."

Separated by hundreds of miles, with Billy taking a job in Houston, their long-distance relationship continued until Billy proposed and then accepted a job at Keller High School. "And the rest is history," Jovan says.

Jovan graduated from TCU with a degree in entrepreneurial management and marketing in 2006, added a master's in marketing and communications and is halfway through a doctorate in conflict resolution.

"That's my psychotic passion," she said. "Even going back to junior high, I was one of those nerds that was trained to be a peer mediator and had conflict resolution classes. And I'm thinking, `What a nerd!'''

Unsure of her career path at the time, she was encouraged by a professor to take a sales job out of college.

"He said you can get some tough skin and it will really grow you," she said. "I ended up taking a job in new construction real estate and did that for 3 ½ years and was very successful. It was a great experience. When you learn how to process rejection day after day, it really does build you up in ways that you didn't know needed building up."

As the assistant cheer coach at SMU, Overshown said she thoroughly "enjoyed being a part of all that excitement that I was a part of when I cheered." But, she didn't feel like coaching was her career path.

As the marketing and promotions coordinator for the TCU University Press, Overshown promoted the various books they published. "One of my favorite authors was this 92-year-old man that drove this little smart car, just as sweet as he could be."

"But, it was very slow-paced, because book publishing is a slow process," she said. "And you're hearing every day how university presses are closing down at different schools. . . . I always thought this would be a dream job, going back to my alma mater, but I just didn't have that same feel."

At The King's University in Southlake, Texas, Overshown directed the internal and external communications and institutional marketing and creative services. "It was a seminary, so we didn't have athletics," she said. "The president and I were very close, and we would always talk about trying to build this experience there. But without athletics, it's so hard. He was a football player back in his time, so we had these conversations about the challenges of what could we do to engage the academic body, the community, without having that natural camaraderie."

Before taking the Baylor job, Overshown got two offers from a Boeing company, but ended up passing on both.

"Again, it was something that logically didn't make sense to say no," she said. "But, there was just such a peace about this. In the moment, it looks like a cluster, but it's so cool to look back and to have complete peace with it."

Jovan and Billy have a 2-year-old son, Hendrix Steel, who she says totally lives up to the meaning of his name, "ruler of the household."

"God bless the second one," she said. "It's weird, because in public you would think he's a saint. He's uncomfortably shy right now. But, he's fun, it's wild."

As for her first six months at Baylor and in Waco, she says, "We have so appreciated the change in pace that we did not realize we needed. We've really enjoyed it."