It’s not a separate 501c3 (certainly not run like one of it is). The article says specifically we don’t have one like these other schools where they directly pay coaches out of a separate entity.
It is a separate entity. And what you are TRYING to allude to is a different issue, it has to do with disclosure and governance, which is what F$U has been working to accomplish (and UiF has done for quite some time).
Yes, I agree, UM has never used the HC to be a separate conduit to pay the coach extra money, since we are a private school and do not NEED to perform such end-runs around state law (as many other SEC/Big 10 state schools must do).
Again, I'm NOT sitting here saying that we SHOULD NOT try to utilize the HC in this fashion, but only that we do not NEED to do so to evade coaching salary limitations set in place by a state legislature. We CAN pay a HC anything we want, there is nothing stopping us. We have the OVERALL money, but if a UM President (or Trustee) wants to get overly officious about "you can only spend from the Athletic Department's budget", then sure, we do not yet have any "emergency infusion" process set up. We are not suddenly going to collect an adidas bonus, or sell extra tickets. Perhaps an alum/donor could earmark a contribution for a specific purpose, but where you ARE correct is that the HC has never been set up to offload its extra cash, annually, into the Athletic Department or the general University budget in the same way that the Bull Gators do.
But, yes, the HC could conceivably do whatever we want it to do. Still, there's not some emergency $20M to be found, either in the Athletic Department budget or the Hurricane Club. And if we want the HC to do more coach-funding, we are not prohibited from doing so, but there will have to be a lot more fund-raising done on an annual basis (not just capital campaigns).