When Jeremy Foley first arrived at Florida, he was unknown.
“Nobody knew who I was or that I was coming,” he said.
“I was like nobody.”
Forty years later, he’ll never have that problem again.
That was made clear on Tuesday when Foley, 63, took to the lectern to address an overflowing flock of media members, employees and friends about his upcoming retirement after 25 years as UF’s athletic director.
His checkerboard-silk coat, blue button-down shirt and gray slacks were in stark contrast to the red corduroy pants he wore when he first arrived on campus to apply for an internship.
“It was 4,000 degrees,” he said. “... And I didn’t want to be here.”
It’s safe to say that’s no longer true.
After working his way up from an intern in the ticket office to athletic director over 16 years, Foley changed the course of Florida sports forever when he took over the program.
He said that when he started as an intern, all Florida wanted was a Southeastern Conference Championship in football.
When he took over, UF had won nine total national championships. Under Foley, Florida won three times that amount.
He is also the only Division I athletic director to ever preside over a program that won multiple football and basketball titles.
He hired legendary coaches Urban Meyer and Billy Donovan.
The accolades can go on and on, but Foley said it was never just about winning. It was about winning the right way.
He learned that first-hand when Florida finally captured an SEC football crown for the first time in 1984. Several months later, the Gators had to vacate it because of rule violations.
“I always thought we were a program that had two strikes against us,” Foley said.
“I told my staff often: We’re not going down the three-strike route.”
Even after the success of UF’s sports program in the ‘90s and beyond, Foley never abandoned that mentality.
“Remember, athletics can be in the ditch by noon,” he remembers former UF president Bernie Machen telling him.
“So we always were excited when noon came and went because it meant we were OK until the next day.”
But over the years, Florida has become more than just OK. Foley credited the coaches he has hired, and said one of the main reasons he decided to retire is because of the group of coaches currently in place.
“It’s unbelievable,” he said of their success.
As for the success of Florida overall, Foley wouldn’t outright say that UF has the best athletic program in the country, but he’s pleased with where it stands.
“That’s the beauty of sports,” he said.
“You can have those conversations, but you can’t leave us off the list. And that’s reality.”
Contact Ethan Bauer at ebauer@alligator.org or follow him on Twitter at @ebaueri.
From left: Mike Hill, UAA executive associate athletics director for external affairs, and Chip Howard, executive associate athletics director for internal affairs, watch Jeremy Foley, the UF athletics director, speak about his career at an Accent Speaker’s Bureau event in the Evans Champions Club on Tuesday. “It’s not a perfect science,” he said about the process of hiring a new coach. “The fit part is really important. The honesty and integrity part is really important.”
