CORAL GABLES, Fla. -- 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 g.
