Reagan with Miami Hurricanes football team 1988

Sam Jankovich (September 10, 1934 – October 30, 2019) was an American sports administrator who held several positions, including

athletic director An athletic director (commonly "athletics director" or "AD") is an administrator at many American clubs or institutions, such as colleges and universities, as well as in larger high schools and middle schools, who oversees the work of coaches an ...

at the

Washington State University Washington State University (Washington State, WSU, or informally Wazzu) is a public land-grant research university with its flagship, and oldest, campus in Pullman, Washington. Founded in 1890, WSU is also one of the oldest land-grant uni ...

and the

University of Miami The University of Miami (UM, UMiami, Miami, U of M, and The U) is a private research university in Coral Gables, Florida. , the university enrolled 19,096 students in 12 colleges and schools across nearly 350 academic majors and programs, i ...

. He also was the CEO of the New England Patriots of the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

(NFL) and president and general manager of the

Las Vegas Gladiators {{Cat main, Thomas & Mack Center Paradise, Nevada University of Nevada, Las Vegas Wikipedia categories named after buildings and structures in the United States Wikipedia categories named after sports venues ...

of the

Arena Football League The Arena Football League (AFL) was a professional arena football league in the United States. It was founded in 1986, but played its first official games in the 1987 season, making it the third longest-running professional football league in ...

(AFL).

College

A native of Butte, Montana, Jankovich earned a letter in football in 1957 at the

University of Montana The University of Montana (UM) is a public research university in Missoula, Montana. UM is a flagship institution of the Montana University System and its second largest campus. UM reported 10,962 undergraduate and graduate students in the fa ...

Missoula Missoula ( ; fla, label=Salish language, Séliš, Nłʔay, lit=Place of the Small Bull Trout, script=Latn; kut, Tuhuⱡnana, script=Latn) is a city in the U.S. state of Montana; it is the county seat of Missoula County, Montana, Missoula Cou ...

. His playing career was cut short by a serious knee injury; Jankovich tried to give his scholarship back but Grizzly coach Jerry Williams refused his offer.

Coaching career

After graduation, Jankovich became a football coach at Butte High School, where he won two state championships. He later became an assistant coach at Montana State University in Bozeman under head coach Jim Sweeney. In 1968, he followed Sweeney to

in Pullman, where he served as head assistant coach and defensive coordinator. He left coaching in 1972, when he became an assistant to the athletic director at Washington State.

Athletic administrator

After several years as an assistant athletic director, Jankovich succeeded

Ray Nagel Raymond Robert Nagel (May 18, 1927 – January 15, 2015) was an American football player, coach, and college athletics administrator. He was the head football coach at the University of Utah from 1958 to 1965 and the University of Iowa from 1966 t ...

as WSU's athletic director in August 1976. He established a reputation for building athletic facilities, primarily expanding Martin Stadium in 1979 by lowering the field and removing the track. This required the addition of the new Mooberry track facility and the relocation of the

baseball stadium A ballpark, or baseball park, is a type of sports venue where baseball is played. The playing field is divided into the infield, an area whose dimensions are rigidly defined, and the outfield, where dimensions can vary widely from place to pla ...

. In 1983, Jankovich took a job as athletic director at the

in southern

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

, and held this position until 1990. During his tenure, Miami's

football team A football team is a group of players selected to play together in the various team sports known as football. Such teams could be selected to play in a match against an opposing team, to represent a football club, group, state or nation, an all-s ...

rose to perennial national power and men's basketball returned after a 15-year absence. Jankovich oversaw several national championships including three in football and one each in

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

, men's and women's

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...

, and women's

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping ...

NFL

In December

1990 File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of humanity on Earth, astrophysicist ...

, Jankovich was hired by

Victor Kiam Victor Kermit Kiam II (December 7, 1926 – May 27, 2001) was an American entrepreneur and TV spokesman for Remington Products, and the owner of the New England Patriots football team from 1988–1991. He was well known for his turnaround of Rem ...

chief executive officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especial ...

of the New England Patriots. He was hired to rebuild the team after a league-worst 1–15 finish, while being plagued by off-the-field problems. He left after two seasons, as the Patriots went 6–10 in

1991 File:1991 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Boris Yeltsin, elected as Russia's first president, waves the new flag of Russia after the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, orchestrated by Soviet hardliners; Mount Pinatubo erupts in the Phi ...

and 2–14 in 1992.

Later life

Jankovich then worked as a consultant to various corporations and universities including doing fundraising for the U.S. Olympic Committee. He would eventually become president and general manager of the Las Vegas Gladiators of the Arena Football League.

1979 highway collision

In the summer of 1979, Jankovich was involved in a fatal highway collision north of Pullman on a Sunday afternoon. He apparently fell asleep at the wheel and crossed the center line, but did not face criminal charges.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jankovich, Sam 1934 births 2019 deaths Miami Hurricanes athletic directors Montana Grizzlies football players New England Patriots executives Washington State Cougars athletic directors Washington State Cougars football coaches National Football League general managers Sportspeople from Butte, Montana Players of American football from Montana American people of Serbian descent