Since everyone spent the last 24 hours bashing the Blake James hire and reading all the negative comments on twitter and BC messages boards I ask you to take 2 minutes to read a positive article on Blake's career achievements and then it becomes a bit more clear why BC went the way that they did. https://miamihurricanes.com/staff/blake-james/
TLDR
1. While he was AD for 6 years at Maine, Maine went to 3 Frozen Fours. (Not many AD's have that hockey experience.)
2. He has led some massively successful fundraising campaigns, including starting the Friars Forever campaign at Providence which was a huge in helping to revamp all of their facilities.
3. He left the Miami athletic department twice during his rising career to be hired back later. (He was clearly well liked.)
4. Men's basketball sold out season tickets from 2015-2018 (hmmm I wonder if BC needed someone who knows how to market and sell basketball)
5. From 2017-19, James served a two-year term as Chair of the NCAA Division I Council, the group responsible for the day-to-day decision-making for all of Division I Athletics.
6. In 2019, he was one of five nominees for the 2019 SportsBusiness Journal Athletic Director of the Year award. 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).
7. Served as the ACC’s Chair of the Athletic Directors.
Bottom line is, if he was hired directly from Miami, everyone would have been thrilled with the hire but he was let go last fall and now he is a retread. His down fall was the lack of success in football (8-4, 9-5, 10-3, 7-6, 6-7, 8-3, 7-5) but he hired Mark Richt and Manny Diaz which both won the press conference when they were announced. He also hired Larranaga which was an overall success. Diaz ended up being a bust and he cost both himself and the AD his job. (And this also explains why every miami fan wanted him to go as football is the end all be all there)
Would people really have preferred the army AD or the lasalle AD or the florida assistant AD or Mike Mayock????
Blake James is not a sexy hire (like Jarmond) but I can see the appeal to the BC administration. BC hit a homerun when they took a chance and hired Martin Jarmond so its easy to say that is the path or direction we should go again. Kraft really just rode MJ's coattails to parlay it into a bigger job, but he was a fine hire as well. James is, without a doubt, a much better hire than Brad Bates. Perhaps after Jarmond and Kraft, the hiring committee learned from their massive mistake in hiring Bates and they deserve more benefit of the doubt?
TLDR
1. While he was AD for 6 years at Maine, Maine went to 3 Frozen Fours. (Not many AD's have that hockey experience.)
2. He has led some massively successful fundraising campaigns, including starting the Friars Forever campaign at Providence which was a huge in helping to revamp all of their facilities.
3. He left the Miami athletic department twice during his rising career to be hired back later. (He was clearly well liked.)
4. Men's basketball sold out season tickets from 2015-2018 (hmmm I wonder if BC needed someone who knows how to market and sell basketball)
5. From 2017-19, James served a two-year term as Chair of the NCAA Division I Council, the group responsible for the day-to-day decision-making for all of Division I Athletics.
6. In 2019, he was one of five nominees for the 2019 SportsBusiness Journal Athletic Director of the Year award. 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).
7. Served as the ACC’s Chair of the Athletic Directors.
Bottom line is, if he was hired directly from Miami, everyone would have been thrilled with the hire but he was let go last fall and now he is a retread. His down fall was the lack of success in football (8-4, 9-5, 10-3, 7-6, 6-7, 8-3, 7-5) but he hired Mark Richt and Manny Diaz which both won the press conference when they were announced. He also hired Larranaga which was an overall success. Diaz ended up being a bust and he cost both himself and the AD his job. (And this also explains why every miami fan wanted him to go as football is the end all be all there)
Would people really have preferred the army AD or the lasalle AD or the florida assistant AD or Mike Mayock????
Blake James is not a sexy hire (like Jarmond) but I can see the appeal to the BC administration. BC hit a homerun when they took a chance and hired Martin Jarmond so its easy to say that is the path or direction we should go again. Kraft really just rode MJ's coattails to parlay it into a bigger job, but he was a fine hire as well. James is, without a doubt, a much better hire than Brad Bates. Perhaps after Jarmond and Kraft, the hiring committee learned from their massive mistake in hiring Bates and they deserve more benefit of the doubt?
