Dave Hyde: Welcome to Miami’s new world and the new athletic director’s role in it
I sat in Miami athletic director Sam Jankovich’s office more than three decades ago when he opened a drawer, pulled out a list of five football coaches and said, “I’m always updating these candidates in case we need a new coach. ” That’s not Miami’s idea of an athletic director today. I sat in Hurricanes athletic director Paul Dee’s office two decades ago when he discussed his vision for the football and basketball programs right down to the type of young, rising coaches that would win and get paid elsewhere to fit into Miami’s budget.
UM’s next athletic director won’t talk like that. The Hurricanes were at the front of the Name-Image-Likeness age in recent years, activating the new rules in a way that took their football program to the top again. Now they’re reorganizing the role of an athletic director in a manner that fits their new-way thinking.
Dan Radakovich is leaving the athletic director’s office after five years of steadfast integrity. But the athletic director as you think of him isn’t going anywhere. School president Joe Echevarria is the one who changed the sports idea at Miami.
He brought a new vision. He expanded Miami’s budget and thinking. “Spending as much as any school out there on sports,” a Miami source said.
Ohio State? Texas? “Any of them.