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Details on Friday meeting between Blake James and large donors

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TheOriginalCane said:
Held roles? Don't care. Good at those roles? Please. Tell me about all of the major contributions that Blake pulled in from 1998 to 2000, when he was Director of Major Gifts and Corporate Sales. Trust me, during those years UM Athletics was desperate for money, and was borrowing from the the UM operating fund.
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Finding specific fundraising that occurred at a private university 20 years ago is going to be difficult. That being said, the below was taken from his bio and covers the last ten years.

"On the development front, the Hurricane Club continues to support UM’s student-athletes and coaches in record numbers. The Hurricane Club raised more than $16 million in 2018-19 and now boasts a record 12,500 members, an increase of 140 percent since 2010. Philanthropic annual fund gifts increased to $5.9 million in 2018-19 and the Hurricane Club secured 10 seven-figure leadership gifts."

You probably don't have much experience dealing with individuals like our BOT members, but those people tend to speak about facts and not let emotion get the best of them. Saying you think Blake should be terminated for his performance as Athletic Director, while acknowledging his success in other positions is a reasonable take. Claiming Blake is bad at every other position he has held at UM is a slap in the fact of the BOT and isn't accurate.
 
LOL at us sucking for the last 15 plus years, losing to f******* FIU, and us not wanting someone with Zo's acumen to oversee our football operations. Meanwhile, Oregon whom are actually doing things will hire him because they see what an asset he would be. Like, we just went 6-7 losing to three high school teams to end the season. This clearly means the BOT does not give "one IOTA" (to quote the great DBC) about our football program. Was trying to get excited with the Lashlee and possible Zo in admin to renew season tickets but after hearing this news, PLP!
 
Salt said:
Agreed to by whom? If Blake wasn't on board there is the issue. If agreed to by Blake then what is the problem?
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I guess it was all board members and since salary was being paid for Frenk had no issue. Honestly I have ZERO clue how this could even possibly be how this is being reported. BLAKE DOESNT HAVE ANY SAY SO OVER THEM AND FRENK. it would have to be majority vote by board and approval by Frenk to turn this down... my understanding was frenk had already checked off. Only way that would be possible to lose the deal is if board switched majority vote to against. That's crazy.
 
Blake James is a strange character. Results aside, what seems off is the lack of candor, which raises the question of whether he’s just naive and incompetent, or worse, has a different agenda he won’t acknowledge.

I understand the PR aspect of the role, but PR firms will tell you, directness, candor and authenticity matter. So saying ‘PR’ to explain his behavior seems unhelpful. That’s an excuse, not an explanation. Which is now clear, since his ‘PR’ has failed.
 
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DMoney said:
Per a source with knowledge of the meeting, a group of high-level donors met with Blake James on Friday. The purpose of the meeting was to offer significant money if Manny was willing to make necessary changes.

Most notably, the group wanted Alonzo Highsmith to take on a general manager role that would usurp some of Blake and Manny’s power over the football program. One booster even offered to pay Highsmith’s salary for two years. Blake refused and instead offered a more traditional “chief of staff” role that was mostly administrative in nature.

Highsmith is not expected to accept the offer and instead is in discussions with Mario Cristobal at Oregon.
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Great reporting! I would never pick against my Canes, but if next year’s result are unimpressive then the only consolation will be watching Manny, Blake, and assistant AD to football get fired providing some comfort to offset the lousy 2021recruiting class we will have and the realization of a long term rebuild.

I blame the BOT for allowing Blake to have the final say instead of doing the pragmatic and correct decision in hiring Highsmith. Feels like the people in leadership roles are most interested in self preservation instead of effecting positive change.
 
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To the BoT, this is a chance for your university to not look as bigoted as many people of color in the city believe you are. If you have any sense of decent you will do what's right and strip Janes and Diaz of their power and put one of UMs top former stars in place to make changes.
 
all of this stuff just isn’t adding up. This all smells like people leaking information to build momentum / enrage the fan base to me. Seems like every hour there’s a new story that doesn’t even match up with previous information.

my source has gone silent for the day so my guess is that there probably are some big things happening that he’s just waiting to hear about.
 
LuCane said:
I said yesterday there's been tons of research done on the Co-CEO approach. It mostly fails. For lots of reasons. In the very few instances it works, it's a specific scenario involving founders or family, it seems. Neither case applies here. No need to re-invent the wheel here. The research on co-CEO approach has been done. Hire one person and hold that person accountable or give that person the credit. That aspect isn't complicated. For us, identifying the right person is apparently multi-variable calculus being solved by 3rd graders.
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But it's not really. The AD does a lot more than just football. And basically how it operates right now is Blake is pretty ******* hands off regardless if we suck or not. So for him it really wouldn't be changing much. He'd still be out fundraising. He just wouldn't have control over the football decisions like hires/fires or recruiting or any of that. He raises the money, and Highsmith spends it.
 
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dsddcane said:
The donor was paul dimare... and him and stu want a Alabama Clemson OSU type staff
Will clean house next year. No one will have a job including flake if they have their way. Let's pray
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Gotdamnit Dimare for President. There aint no reason you cant have a top research university and a top notch athletic departmentnt to boot.
 
dsddcane said:
I guess it was all board members and since salary was being paid for Frenk had no issue. Honestly I have ZERO clue how this could even possibly be how this is being reported. BLAKE DOESNT HAVE ANY SAY SO OVER THEM AND FRENK. it would have to be majority vote by board and approval by Frenk to turn this down... my understanding was frenk had already checked off. Only way that would be possible to lose the deal is if board switched majority vote to against. That's crazy.
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pacusmc said:
Commitment to Mediocrity!!!
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at all costs
 
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dsddcane said:
I guess it was all board members and since salary was being paid for Frenk had no issue. Honestly I have ZERO clue how this could even possibly be how this is being reported. BLAKE DOESNT HAVE ANY SAY SO OVER THEM AND FRENK. it would have to be majority vote by board and approval by Frenk to turn this down... my understanding was frenk had already checked off. Only way that would be possible to lose the deal is if board switched majority vote to against. That's crazy.
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I don’t know what did or didn’t happen, but even if there was support for going the AH route, it’d be easy for blake to kill it with bureaucratic details. Just mention Title IX and hiring and firing protocols and remind people lawyers need to approve of things and the goo slows things to a halt.
 
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