Colleges

Director of dominance

AD Jeremy Foley has taken Florida to the top.

By DAVE SCHEIBER
Published January 14, 2007

ADVERTISEMENT [Times photo: Brian Cassella] Florida athletic director Jeremy Foley celebrates the Gators' national football title at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium on Saturday.

He showed up for his job interview from Ohio in 1976 in a pair of corduroys, stunned by how hot the summer weather was in Gainesville.

Thirty-one years later, the kid who started as a ticket-office intern at the University of Florida has helped make Gator athletics the hottest ticket in college sports.

And when he arrived at work Wednesday, Jeremy Foley - UF's athletic director since 1992 - was inundated by congratulatory e-mails and phone calls in the wake of the Gators' 41-14 win over Ohio State two days earlier for the national championship.

"It's a blur, it's still one of these situations where you have to keep pinching yourself and say, 'Did that really happen?' " Foley, 54, said. "Not that I'm surprised our football team won, because obviously they're very, very good. But wow, to win that championship, it's a hard thing to do. And then, 8,000 e-mails, 8,000 phone calls, it's a time to feel good."

The school's only other national football title happened on Foley's watch in 1996. Now there are new landmarks. When the men's basketball team won the national title in April, he became the only AD in Division I history to direct a program that won national crowns in football and men's basketball, according to the UF sports information office. And last week's triumph marked the first time a Division I college held both men's titles simultaneously.

Eleven of UF's 19 national titles in all sports have come in his tenure, but the latest two conquests are etched in his mind.

"It's the same thing that happened last April in Indianapolis," he said. "I'm standing on the court there and all this confetti is falling on my head and I look up at the scoreboard and it says the Gators won. Well, the same thing happened on Monday night with the exact same feeling. I'm down on the field there and all this confetti's flying around your head and you look up at the scoreboard and it's almost surreal."

Foley directs any credit to his two coaches, Urban Meyer and Billy Donovan.

"I'm real excited for those two coaches 'cause I know how hard they work," he said. "I see the sacrifices they make every day. I see what they go through when they're not winning championships and they lose a game that people think they shouldn't lose and the beating they can take from the media or the fans, whatever have you, so I'm very happy for Urban and Billy.

"I was happy for the players and the institution, but to see the fruits of their labors end up like this, that, to me, is what makes it really, really special."

Fairness counts

People who know Foley think that word describes him well.

"I've always thought if Jeremy were the athletic director at a Division III nonscholarship program, he would care just as deeply about the experience for his athletes and his coaches as he does at this high-level Division I school," said UF volleyball coach Mary Wise, whose teams have won 16 straight Southeastern Conference titles. "He wakes up every morning asking himself what can we do to better the experience for our student-athletes and make our coaches more successful."

Wise says Foley genuinely cares about women's athletics: "There are a lot of ADs who put money and resources into women's athletics because they have to. It's one thing to be on the sidelines behind your football coach and men's basketball coach. But here's a guy who's attending volleyball matches on a Friday night or a Sunday afternoon after a home football weekend. And he knows every one of our volleyball players' names - every one - and calls me on the road every weekend before we play to wish me luck."

Greg McGarity, Florida's senior associate AD, knows Foley as well as anyone, having worked with him for all of his 15-year tenure running Gator athletics.

"Jeremy is unique in his ability to multitask and be extremely effective at it," McGarity said. "He's a CFO, he's heavily involved in fundraising efforts, he's a person who has to comfort others during tough times, he has to hire and fire, he has to be a speaker and he has to be a leader. And he does all of that with a high level of professionalism and grace."

Foley's job, in fact, is not typical of athletic directors nationwide. Sure, he hires coaches and negotiates contracts. But he also serves as chief financial officer for the University Athletic Association, drawing on his business affairs work while serving as associate athletic director from 1981-85.

Foley is credited with raising more than $149-million for capital improvements: among them, two major expansions of the football stadium, a multipurpose field house and new facilities for seven other sports. And he was instrumental in the creation of a $4.1-million academic advising center for all students.

"When I became AD, I just felt that keeping a hands-on approach of what's going on in the business office was important," he said. "I have comptrollers, and they do the day-to-day work. There's so much money involved: obviously huge contracts, television negotiations, corporate sponsorship deals. I just felt that as AD I needed to have an awareness of what's going on there and where the dollars are spent."

The athletic program has gotten plenty of bang for the buck. It has ranked in the nation's top five in the Sears Director's Cup national all-sports competition for 10 of Foley's 15 years. Eleven NCAA titles have been won. Three women's sports have been added. Entering the fall, student-athletes had been named Academic All-Americans 63 times, No. 4 among Division I colleges since 1992.

And in June, Foley was named the Street & Smith's SportsBusiness Journal national athletic director of the year.

Still, it hasn't always been rosy. Foley was criticized in 2002 when he hired ex-UF assistant and then-New Orleans Saints defensive coordinator Ron Zook to replace Steve Spurrier. Despite excelling as a recruiter, Zook oversaw three inconsistent seasons.

When Foley fired him during the '04 season, he soon found himself in the crosshairs of boosters and fans when Spurrier, pondering his return to the college ranks, wasn't immediately scooped up and wound up at South Carolina.

Then Oklahoma's Bob Stoops and the Denver Broncos' Mike Shanahan declined to pursue the job. And Meyer seemed destined to leave Utah for Notre Dame. But Foley and president Bernie Machen - who hired Meyer at Utah - lured him to Gainesville.

"I think he is as good an AD as there is in America," Meyer said. "The one thing about athletics, it is easy to judge. He makes great decisions. He creates an atmosphere. When he came in and visited us in Salt Lake City, (he) walked in, very well-prepared, very clear."

Added ESPN college football analyst Lee Corso: "If you study his track record, he started at the bottom and knows the entire organization. He has matured and gone through that transition. And now he's the best of the best."

Money talks

With the twin successes of football and basketball, Foley's Gator legacy is golden.

So is his paycheck. He's in the third year of a 10-year contract worth about $600,000 annually.

Foley won't discuss details of a possible renegotiation with Meyer, who signed a seven-year, $14-million deal, other than this: "The University of Florida has always tried to treat our coaches fairly. I think that's part of the conversation, and at some point in time we'll sit down and do that."

Foley did say no NFL owners have inquired about asking permission to talk to Meyer.

So the program he has helped build remains on the rise. "Sometimes in a lot of programs there can be a lot of jealousies and a lot of 'we don't get enough attention' or 'we don't' this or 'we don't' that," Donovan said. "I think Jeremy is the one that has created a great mind-set and this focus that everybody gets along and everybody gets everything they need to be successful."

The son of a former U.S. diplomat, Foley came a long way from his childhood years in New London, N.H., and his days at Hobart (N.Y.) College, where he played football and lacrosse. After 31 years at the same institution, having been named an honorary UF alumnus in 2000, Foley is an institution unto himself.

"There's no bigger Gator fan than me," he said. "Being here this long gives you inside knowledge of all the highs and the lows. And I'm just happy for the university, and I'm happy for this program."

Times staff writer Antonya English contributed to this report. Dave Scheiber can be reached at scheiber@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8541.

[Last modified January 14, 2007, 08:02:38]