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RIP Sam Jankovich

Dear God,

Thank you for answering my prayers but you took away the wrong Miami AD. I appreciate the effort though. I will be more specific next time.

Sincerely,

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Canenable said:
Personal interactions with AD Sam Jankovich as an athlete in the '80's would lead me to say he was a genuine a-hole, but I was in a non-revenue sport and we were probably just an annoyance to him.

As an AD he had a tremendous impact, he couldn't save Schnellenberger from leaving, but he spent his entire time under the uncooperative Tad Foote trying to keep the machine running. He came in 1983 and got to watch the first title win but then had to search for a coach in Jimmy Johnson. He had great success and Dennis Erickson was handpicked by Jankovich and then Sam left and Erickson let the program go down, although still competitive until sanctions hit.

We were lucky to have Sam Jankovich at the U, a big part of the building of a historical run in football.
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I think Sam was succeeded by Dave Maggard who came from UC Berkeley. He fired John Routh, I believe, saying we didn't have to pay Routh's salary--get a student to do Sebastian and the Maniac. Maggard was gone almost as soon as he got to UM. The real stability after Sam left was Paul Dee who managed our various NCAA problems as university general counsel. They eventually made Paul permanent AD. I think he was pretty good.

And yes....Sam was an *******. Reportedly often treated staff like ****. But a very effective AD.

I heard a story how he walked in the door of the Hurricane Club and loudly proclaimed, "I should fire every last one of you...."
 
It was great times with Sam around a true AD in every sense of the word. When the players lobbied for Gary Stevens to replace JJ he didn’t bow to the mob. Instead he reached out to some guy at Washington State who was running the one back offense.

Gary Stevens would have been a total disaster.
 
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BigJoeGrizzly said:
It was great times with Sam around a true AD in every sense of the word. When the players lobbied for Gary Stevens to replace JJ he didn’t bow to the mob. Instead he reached out to some guy at Washington State who was running the one back offense.

Gary Stevens would have been a total disaster.
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the best thing I can say about Sam was that he was a true, seasoned professional, unlike Blake James who really has not gravitas or command of anything.
 
Sam was a great visionary and a man of action. He would have most definitely never hired any of the incompetent maggots that we’ve had corching our Canes. How I miss those days. He wasn’t an @$$hole, just a guy with a clear and concise vision, and the knowledge, wisdom and plan to make it happen.

In today’s society he would be judged by many as an @$$hole, but he just knew what it took to win, and expected excellence in all things. If he would have been a happy, smiley guy we probably never see such an era of dominance at the U. He ran a tight ship and you were there to work and make the U’s athletic’s department the best it could be, not to be stealing money like the current batch of nitwits and scammers have been doing for the last decade plus.

God bless Mr. Jankovich and give comfort to his family during this most difficult of times. There will never be another Sam Jankovich. We would be blessed to land someone of his ilk again.
 
I will never forget Sam lecturing all of us non revenue athletes (thats what they used to call Olympic sports) about staying out of trouble by saying "there are no sacred cows here." It was the first time I ever heard that expression and I always think of him when I hear it. RIP to the best AD we ever had.
 
TheMatador said:
Yes. I think he overlapped with Schnellenberger for the '83 championship season. I used to wonder about that relationship. Two very strong personalities, wouldn't be surprised if they clashed and maybe Howard did not want to work under Sam. So he left.

Sam probably would not have hired Larry Coker, Randy Shannon, or Manny. Sam was adamant about not hiring as a head coach someone who had never been a head coach. He had had a very bad experience at one of the schools where Sam had previously served as AD. I don't know any of the names, I just remember Sam telling the story. He was insistent that he would only take someone who had a track record as a head coach. That being said, I never understood why he hired someone as obscure as Jimmy Johnson. Jimmy had a mediocre 30-25 record at Oklahoma State.

Turned out to be a great hire. Maybe Sam saw some things that were not obvious to most. After all, as far as I know, Sam never had any connection, coming from the Pacific Northwest, to the Frank Broyles-Johnny Majors-Jackie Sherrill coaching tree which was Jimmy's background.
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Sam & JJ had crossed paths while JJ was at Okla State. There was a triangle of Sam, JJ and Barry Switzer, before U. I remember reading this somewhere. I’ll see if I can find this somewhere.
 
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This is one of those RIPs where you really mean it.

Like...yo...this guy was the reason. y'feel me?

Great man. I hope he enjoys that great O.B. in the sky.
 
Sam and JJ.........what a combination.
RIP, and know that you taught us how to be Football Champions that helped create our Legacy.
Thank you..
 
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