Florida Gators’ secret formula for success

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Jeremy Foley searched frantically for the buckeye. He rummaged through drawers, suitcases, clothes and anywhere else it could have been.

His good-luck charm, the one he slipped into his pocket a few days before the opening round of the 2006 NCAA men’s basketball tournament, was gone.

Florida’s longtime athletic director carried the small, dark brown nut during each of the team’s six NCAA wins. When the Gators beat UCLA on April 3 to claim their first basketball championship, the buckeye had nearly as much significance to Foley as any of the trophies they brought home from Indianapolis.

But in the aftermath of the title – the attention, phone calls, e-mails and celebrations – it was lost. Foley started looking for the buckeye again when football season rolled around.

He nearly gave up hope. Then, just a few days before Florida’s opener in September, Foley spotted the missing good-luck charm in the middle of his garage floor.

“It was like it fell from heaven or something,” he says.

Foley carried it during every football game, home and away. And it was there in Arizona, when the Gators beat Ohio State in the championship game.

“Somebody said I need to hang it up,” Foley said. “It’s been a pretty good run for that buckeye.”

Foley is too superstitious to put it away now, especially since the Gators have reset the standard for success by becoming the first school to hold titles in the NCAA’s two marquee sports at the same time.

Foley, 54, was the architect of it all, hiring little-known basketball coach Billy Donovan in 1996 and luring high-profile football coach Urban Meyer in 2004. Foley started as an intern in the ticket office and became A.D. in 1992.

The Gators have claimed 11 national championships and 75 Southeastern Conference championships during Foley’s tenure. Although he takes as much pride in the volleyball team’s 16 consecutive league titles or the soccer team’s 1998 national championship, his crowning achievement surely came in January when the Gators became dual champions in the biggest sports.

“It’s a source of pride, because it’s never been done before,” said Foley, who has seven years remaining on a 10-year contract that pays him about $600,000 a year. “But we’re not a bunch of people who go around thumping our own chest. We know it’s all fleeting. You enjoy it, but I don’t think you can get distracted or start thinking you’ve got everything figured out. You just keep working hard, and maybe good things can happen again.

“If you start thinking it’s going to happen, you have to worry about jinxing it.”

Foley always worries about jinxing things.

Long before the buckeye became part of his routine, there were other traditions. There are the countless phone calls he makes to coaches before their games. There is the pack of gum he gets handed before every home basketball game, then distributes pieces to students sitting behind him.

Foley’s latest ritual started before last year’s NCAA tournament, a couple of days after he began carrying the buckeye. Foley and several staff members ate at a steakhouse in Jacksonville before the first round. The Gators followed with two victories, so they ate at the same restaurant in Minneapolis the following week.

The Gators won twice more, so Foley ate there again in Indianapolis before the Final Four. Florida won it all there, so when the SEC football championship game rolled around in December, they dined at the same place in Atlanta. A few weeks later, they were having steak in Arizona.

Guess what’s on the menu in Atlanta in two weeks, before the SEC basketball tournament? Yep, more steak.

“I’m not ridiculous, but I am superstitious,” Foley admitted.

Foley doesn’t get tired of steak – or winning.

His coaches are paid top dollar. With that comes high expectations and sometimes tough decisions.

“The biggest misnomer with Jeremy is that the expectations are unrealistic for the coaches, and that’s not true,” volleyball coach Mary Wise said. “You’re provided the resources, but the expectations that Jeremy puts on us are nowhere close to the expectations we put on ourselves.

“The recipe for success is here. You’ve got this really great school to recruit to, we have resources and people who are passionate about their jobs and focused on what’s best for the athletes. Winning comes when all that happens.”

But winning doesn’t guarantee anything.

Former baseball coach Andy Lopez made two College World Series appearances in seven years with the Gators. Men’s tennis coach Ian Duvenhage took 11 teams to the NCAA postseason. And football coach Ron Zook had a 23-14 record in nearly three years. All were dismissed, despite building close friendships with Foley.

Although Foley’s critics say he cares solely about winning at all costs, supporters point out he’s not afraid to make changes even if they might be considered unpopular moves with fans, colleagues or student-athletes.

“We should be darn good in everything,” Foley said. “That doesn’t mean you win national championships every year, and it doesn’t mean you win Southeastern Conference championships every year. But you should be in the hunt every single year. There are few programs in America that can say that, but I think that’s what this institution deserves.

“If that’s not happening, it doesn’t mean you quickly walk around and turn out the lights on people. But you analyze it, evaluate it, coach and counsel. And if you don’t think it’s going to get to where you think it can go, then you’ve got to make a decision. If you do anything else, you’re not doing your job. That’s how I feel about it.”