Under Tad Foote, who famously 'cared very little about sports', Miami won 4 of their 5 football national championships, 3 College World Series' and reinstated their basketball program. I am not a Julio Frenk fan by any means and personally think his tenure as Miami president has been extremely poor. That said, the narrative that a university president has to be involved or 'give a crap' about athletics has been completely overblown, as long as the president is granting autonomy to a competent AD. The big issue here is not that Frenk is differing authority to his AD but who he is differing authority to.
Completely different eras and Miami was able to overcome a lame-duck president by way of an era of football where the Canes were light years ahead of the competition.
UM was literally about to drop football before hiring Schnellenberger in 1979—Howard locking down local talent, the state's best and cherry-picking national blue chippers.
Sam Jankovich was the dice-rolling athletic director who landed on Jimmy Johnson—who went 29-25-3 at Oklahoma State, never better than 8-4 there and never beating Nebraska or Oklahoma. Johnson beat the odds and succeeded, again, by recruiting fast local talent while other conferences were still playing catch-up.
Jankovich knew Dennis Erickson from their Montana and Washington State University days and rolled the dice—Erickson with a quirky one-back-offense while knowing not to tinker with a flawless, aggressive defense. Things went south on Erickson's watch regaining pell grant fraud and what not and probation followed—and Butch Davis came in to save the day; Miami's third choice behind Sonny Lubick and Dave Wannstedt.
Paul Dee was Miami's AD at the time—Jankovich leaving for the New England Patriots, while Dave Maggard was hired in the short term, eventually bailing for the 1996 Olympics committee. Dee was Miami's general counsel who wound up falling into a lengthy athletic director roll, hiring Davis.
All this to say, it is a much different college football world and sport here in 2021—so to think that Miami could somehow thrive with an president who hates football, versus a football-first AD—that won't soon work again.
Foote showed up at UM in 1981, Jankovich in 1983—both trailing Schnelly, who arrived in 1979 and started building a program.
Football was gaining momentum by 1981 upon Foote's arrival and was a national champion by the time Jankovich got on board.
When you're already dealing with a first-time winner and budding powerhouse, a cash-strapped president will follow the athletic director's lead. Things only toppled over when Johnson's players had a renegade attitude and started dancing and over-celebrating, giving UM a bad image (in the eyes of Foote). Even then, Johnson's Canes won that battle—winning at title after the Fiesta Bowl debacle and sticking around one more year before handing the keys over to Dennis, where chaos ran amok and championship football dictated the terms; not a tight-*** president.
Hard to have any serious conversation about presidents, athletic directors or the board of trustees at Miami when the program has been in a 16-year funk—while ignoring what the sport has turned into money-wise, as well as the fact the 80's were a much different world for the sport, the culture and the world, as Miami was dominating everything.
