Alright, can I highlight something real quick as to y I was a little P.O’d w that anonymous Trustee’s comment about Blake? B/c dude is legit incompetent to run a AD. Lol at his time at the University of Maine. Lol. Bro, what sports do they even have there?
Botch job after botch job.
“He’s done a great job of fundraising, won awards for athletic directors,” the trustee said. “Our student graduation rate is one of the highest in the country.”
That trustee said school president Julio Frenk “supports Blake. [Former president] Donna Shalala would fire an athletic director she wasn’t happy with, but Julio would leave it to the board. He’s not a sports enthusiast like Donna was.”
Let's break this down.
Fundraising? Great? We had to do a GoFundMe and multiple rounds of begging to fund the IPF, which any alum/booster could have told you was the TOP priority. So why all the struggles? What else have we raised funds for? A new football stadium? Nope. Buying out Willie Taggart? Nope. To use the word "great" would suggest he exceeded goals/expectations, but if you are doing just enough to keep the lights on, why call it "great"?
As for increases in HC contributions, let's think about this. Hard Rock Stadium has decreased seating capacity and parking capacity, while converting several areas of the stadium to "club access". And none of these upgrades are on Miami's dime. So the ability to command more from the HC membership on the football side is NOT due to anything that Blake has dome.
Won awards? Allow me to cut-and-paste from Blake's bio: "This year he was one of five nominees for the 2019 SportsBusiness Journal Athletic Director of the Year. In 2017, James was selected as one of four Division I recipients of the 2016-17 Under Armour Athletic Director of the Year award from the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA)." So, he was NOMINATED for one award and was one of FOUR recipients for another award (no idea what the criteria were).
Student graduation rate? Come on, I have previously documented that Jimmy Johnson created our academic support program (as we currently know it) and it has been incredibly successful since the 1980s. Blake has nothing to do with this metric and has not INCREASED our success in this area in any measurable fashion.
As for what I have said about Shalala for quite some time, she loved and supported athletics, even if we did not attain the results we wanted. You can criticize her for favoring "on the rise" coaches like Coker/Shannon/Golden, but you can't say that she is responsible for our decline. The City of Miami destroyed the Orange Bowl, not UM or Shalala. And Frenk cares EVEN LESS than Foote did, if that is humanly possible.
Wake up, people.