The new power duo of University of Miami athletics came together on campus in the same giant room Tuesday. But this time it was the Hurricanes’ athletic director who took top billing.
Dan Radakovich, 63, was introduced at a news conference as the new UM vice president and director of athletics. Sitting near the front of the Mann Auditorium and listening intently: recently named head football coach Mario Cristobal — less than 24 hours before the start of the early signing period in recruiting.
“When you’ve seen it and done it at the highest level and partner up with people that are hungry and ambitious and they want to elevate the standards and go to that next level, it’s a great marriage,’’ Cristobal told the Miami Herald after Radakovich, who came to Miami after serving nine years as the nationally renowned AD at Clemson, addressed an audience that included university president Julio Frenk, his chief of staff Rudy Fernandez, board of trustee members, boosters and coaches. “The combination of the incredible amount of support and the people that have done it, it’s a great combination.
“You have to be driven to elevate.’’
Radakovich was announced as the AD last Thursday, three days after former Oregon coach Cristobal was named Miami’s coach in a 10-year, $80-million deal, per multiple sources. Radakovich reportedly earned $1.3 million this year and has a package worth close to $2 million annually at Miami, according to a source.
Miami’s new AD knows that elevating football is the key to lifting the entire program.
“Football really was the train that allowed us to do everything else within the athletic program,’’ Radakovich said of Clemson. “They made an incredible profit, mostly off of the 80,000 people that would come to Memorial Stadium for those game days, as well as our affiliation with the Atlantic Coast Conference. That allowed us to do a lot of other things with some of our other sports.
“So, yes, football is the economic engine. That’s not a news flash for anybody in this room. That’s the way it is at almost every Power Five institution. So we need to make sure that happens here. Because when you play a game at Hard Rock Stadium and you have a competitive program and you have a high-level opponent coming in, the revenue that comes forward from that will help generate opportunities for other parts of the athletic program.’’
At Clemson, Tigers football won two national championships under his watch and the program completed more than $200 million in facility construction and upgrades, as well as department revenue nearly doubling. Before that Radakovich served as athletic director at Georgia Tech for six years and as a high-level athletics administrator at several other universities. He got his start in administration as the UM athletic business manager in 1983, the year the Canes won their first national championship and one year after he earned his UM master’s degree in business administration.
When asked how he can get people back, other than a winning team, at notoriously half-empty Hard Rock Stadium, Radakovich said, “Usually that’s a great start.’’
“I’ve been in the business 35 years and you can’t market your way to a full stadium,’’ he said. “But you’ve got to be able to make it something that people want to be a part of.
“Back when I was here as a student and also working here, we used to talk about Miami being an event city. I don’t know that that’s changed, but we have to make those seven Saturdays events, and make sure the team is competitive, the opponents that come in draw some folks, and when they get there they have an incredible time.’’
As for the excitement level of pairing with Cristobal, Radakovich said he’s “watched Mario from afar not only as a player here but as he went through his personal coaching journey, and what he did at [FIU] was phenomenal. And what he did as part of coach [Nick] Saban’s staff at Alabama was very, very good and certainly at Oregon when he took the helm there for the last few years has been spectacular.
“So, he knows how to do it, and he’s seen it and he understands what it takes. Those are things that both he from his vantage point and me from my vantage point, having been at some really top-caliber programs and helped pull those together, we can take our collective knowledge and pull that together here to move the university forward. “
Fernandez, among the main catalysts to lure Radakovich and Cristobal, said he was excited “to bring two superstars’’ to UM.
“President Frenk and the key board leaders that were mapping this out, we think the world of both these guys. These were our two top targets. You’ve heard me say I’m a big fan of Pat Riley. Pat Riley likes to go whale hunting. These were our two whales.
“We were swinging for the fences and it is very fulfilling to know that we’re here.”
Added Fernandez with a smile: “But I won’t celebrate until we’re in the College Football Playoff.”
