Surpassing:Joe Echevarria is Miami’s new president. And on the sideline, he’s the Hurricanes’ biggest fan

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CORAL GABLES, Fla. (AP) — University of Miami president Joe Echevarria has had football season tickets since 1978, the year he graduated from the school. The seats he buys now are as good as most people can get, field club seats right behind one of the goalposts.

He doesn’t use them. He’s found an even better view.

Instead of his luxury seats — or even better, the suite that is afforded to him as president of the school — Echevarria can be found on Miami gamedays on the Hurricanes’ sideline, home or away, trying to be presidential but more often than not reverting to fandom even to the point where he tells offensive coordinator Shannon Dawson to run the ball more.

And when No. 4 Miami (9-0, 5-0 Atlantic Coast Conference) plays at Georgia Tech on Saturday, Echevarria will be on the sideline once again.

“I’m one of those crazed fans,” Echevarria said in an interview with The Associated Press. “I need to pace. I need to process. I need to lament. All the second guessing that fans do, that’s me. I just don’t say it out loud, but I say it to myself. And I love being close to my students and the team is my students, just like the student section is my students.”

Echevarria — who has been part of “The U” since he found his way to campus as a 17-year-old from New York’s South Bronx neighborhood 50 years ago — formally became Miami’s seventh president last month. He graduated from the school, was hired by Deloitte as an accountant and eventually became the business giant’s CEO, and never forgot that the interview for that first Deloitte job came on the Miami campus. He serves on a slew of boards and was CEO of the university’s health system before moving into the president’s office.

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He also played a critical role in bringing Mario Cristobal, a Miami native and Hurricanes alum, back to the school, luring him away from a massive contract extension offer from Oregon with a 10-year, $80 million deal to take over as Miami’s football coach in December 2021.

“It starts with him being an elite human being and a legitimate difference maker and impact guy. A game changer for so many reasons,” Cristobal said. “And he’s a guy that’s poured his heart and soul into the University of Miami. I would not have hopped on a plane to come to Miami without the presence of our current president.”

In typical Echevarria style, he was quick to point out that he was just part of the team that brought Cristobal home. He’s not big on getting credit for things. Those who work with Echevarria all say the same thing, that he just wants things done and done right.

“I was part of a larger team,” Echevarria said of the operation that resulted in Cristobal coming back to Miami. “And what it meant to me was personal in nature and emotional for me to hear Mario say it because Mario is Mario. ... I was part of something magical, no matter how this turns out. Mario saying it, to me, was heartfelt. And it reminded me that we’re in this together.”

Echevarria isn’t just about football. He still buys his season tickets to men’s basketball, women’s basketball and baseball. (Miami doesn’t charge for tickets to any other sports, or he’d buy more.) He can never be found in any of the seats that he buys; yes, he stands for basketball and baseball games as well, dealing with his nerves and excitement.

There’s a reason for him wanting to be in on the action on game days. It’s not to be seen; Echevarria doesn’t care about that. It goes back to a lesson he learned at Deloitte, when he had an office on the 47th floor of a skyscraper in Manhattan. The real action, he figured out, was going on down on the ground. The best decisions, he learned, have to be made closest to where the mission is being delivered.

“I’m happy to serve because it’s personal for me and it’s pure joy,” Echevarria said. “Whether it’s the academics, whether it’s the health system, or whether it’s athletics — the three verticals that we really have as an institution — I’m happy to serve. The University of Miami changed my life. It took a kid from the inner city who was a minority and gave me the confidence to travel 8.3 miles from the projects I grew up in to the 47th floor of 30 Rock, which is where my office was. And it happened because of this magical place.”

He beams when telling that story and gets the same energy jolt when he’s sitting in on classes with students, or meeting with faculty, or talking to donors. The football team at 9-0 and contending for an ACC championship — or maybe even something bigger — is a nice perk right now, but it’s not the top priority for Miami’s new president.

“It’s the mission first, always: Our students, our patients, our research, and who delivers the mission? My faculty,” Echevarria said. “And my coaches are faculty for the athletic part. The faculty, my academic faculty, take the student part. Coaches are faculty for the athletics. To me, it’s all about pursuing excellence in everything we do.”

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