I don't know their names, I just figured Miami was like all these other big programs where the donors and board have huge pull over HC hirings and things within the program. I guess I was wrong and we let a terrible AD who doesn't know anything about team building or football in General hire a HC without interviewing anyone else. If I was a major donor and our AD hired a HC without discussing it with the board and getting their approval I would of pulled my money.
Look, I'm trying very hard not to argue with you, so let's see if we can settle this down and agree on a couple of things.
Miami has not really EVER had the "mega donor" boosters like you see at the big state schools of the SEC/Big 10/Big 12 etc. And as I have pointed out on other threads, Miami has a disproportionately large Board of Trustees (when compared to the size of our school, number of our colleges/schools, etc.) with most of them having very little background in athletics.
I can agree with you on almost all of your assessment of Blake. He is a terrible AD, but when I started mentioning this YEARS AGO, I had a bunch of porsters tell me "Richt/IPF", as if those two things outweighed everything else that Blake has done poorly for years.
I have no criticism of your point about deciding to pull donor money. If you go back and look at Blake's response over the last couple of years (when Miami fans questioned coaching hires/retention), Blake (like the ticket scumbag that he is) usually reverts to his talking points about "the Hurricane Club raised a record amount of money" or "we sold out all of our season tickets faster than ever", while claiming monetary credit for Hard Rock renovations paid for...NOT BY UM.
So, yeah, even if we agreed on how a BOT or boosters might be involved with Athletics at other schools, I'm just trying to convey to you that this is NOT how it has been working lately with Blake. That's all. It doesn't make me some self-appointed expert on everything, I'm just trying to share my knowledge of how the athletic department at UM runs, based on my knowledge and the knowledge I gain from friends who work at UM.
I'll conclude with this. Giving your AD a ton of power is GREAT when you have a great AD who knows what the **** he is doing (and is smart enough not to rub that power in everyone's faces). But it does not work out so well when you have a dopey beta AD like Blake.
Great Miami ADs since 1980 - Sam Jankovich (who fought with Foote/BOT frequently, because he had the power and didn't back down)
Good Miami ADs since 1980 - Doc Mallios, Paul Dee (who did not fight as much, but also didn't accomplish as much)
Terrible Miami ADs since 1980 - Dave "Maggot" Maggard, Kirby Hocuntt, The Shermanator, Beta Blake
And I've had the pleasure (or curse) to have met all of these men.
I hope our next AD comes close to being like Sam.