The first thing Jeremiah Donati did when he moved into his office at the University of South Carolina’s Rice Athletics Center was face his chair to the window. USC’s new athletics director wanted a straight view of Williams-Brice Stadium.
For now, the gameday magic exists solely in Donati’s imagination — the December press conference announcing him as Ray Tanner’s successor marked his first time in Columbia — but his vision is as sharp as a slant route for a touchdown on a cloudless afternoon.
He can see the rally towels. He can hear “Sandstorm” and “2001.” He can feel the earth move under the bounce-and-sway of 80,000 exuberant Gamecocks celebrating — what? Big plays? Big wins? Big seasons?
Big dreams. And not just for the football program. Williams-Brice isn’t just a muse
but a metaphor. “I look at that stadium as a toy chest, or even a treasure chest,”
Donati explains. “Not because there’s all this cash banked up in there or something,
but if I can figure out what the key is, and I open it, that opens up all this
other opportunity.”
“I’m a firm believer that if you visualize things enough times in life, you can make things happen. Athletes do that a lot.”
As he admires the grandstands, Donati thinks about improvements to the 91-year-old stadium but also to Colonial Life Arena and any other venue that needs an upgrade. As he studies the ramp towers, he thinks about the year-round fan experience, not just Saturdays in the fall.
He also thinks about NIL and revenue sharing, the seismic shifts coming to college athletics. He thinks about student-athletes, coaches, locker room chemistry. He thinks about stability and sustainability, how to build programs that compete at the highest level, year after year. He thinks about championships.
“I’m a firm believer that if you visualize things enough times in life, you can make things happen,” he says. “Athletes do that a lot. They visualize themselves making that free throw, sinking that putt, completing that pass, making that field goal, spiking that ball. And when the moment comes, they’ve already done it.”
Donati has done it, too. Not here, not yet, but his resume charts a rapid ascent.
In his eight years as AD at Texas Christian University, TCU won eight team national championships and 11 Big 12 conference titles. Prior to that, he served as deputy AD, associate AD and executive director of TCU’s fundraising arm, the Frog Club, where he studied the money side of the ledger.
And then there's the X factor. Prior to TCU, Donati was general counsel and director of player representation at Steinberg Sports & Entertainment. That’s Steinberg as in Leigh Steinberg, the real-life Jerry McGuire, an industry titan.
“Leigh is one of the most amazing dealmakers you’ll ever come across, and I was fortunate to work with him for five years,” says Donati. “I’ve had a number of really good mentors — people that, for whatever reason, saw something in me and took a chance on me — and Leigh’s a big one. It’s amazing how far you can see when you stand on the shoulders of giants.”
Donati earned a bachelor’s degree in politics and government at the University of Puget Sound and played basketball for the Loggers. In fact, he was set on playing professional basketball in Europe, despite a floundering college career, when another mentor reached out about his plans post-graduation.
At the time, Jim Livengood was athletics director at Washington State. Donati’s dad had been a team doctor for the Cougars back in Pullman, and the younger Donati had himself been a ball boy for Cougars basketball. So when the old family friend gave him a reality check about his prospects in professional basketball, then suggested he get serious about a career path, Donati heard himself express a dream that previously only existed at the back of his mind.
“Instinctively, I said, ‘Well, Mr. Livengood, I want to be like you. I want to be an athletics director.’ So Jim paused and then said, ‘Two things. One, I would suggest you get serious about mapping out this career path of yours. And two, a lot of these guys getting into the business now, they’ve got MBAs or they’ve got juris doctorates.’”
And that’s what Donati did. He earned a juris doctorate from Whittier Law School in 2005.
“I became completely fixated on going that route and finding what Jim was describing as a better path to where ultimately I wanted to be, which was in his chair,” he says. “It was the best career advice anyone ever gave me.”
The best life advice came courtesy of Donati’s dad. Richard Donati always encouraged his son to chase his dreams, even if they seemed like a dead-end. The Leigh Steinberg job interview is a case in point.
“I think Leigh gave me 45 minutes, which was very generous, and we ended up talking for almost three hours,” says Donati. “We’re talking about our dads. We’re talking about our families. We’re talking about our vision, the way we see the world. We just had a very natural connection.”
Donati left the meeting feeling good about his prospects. Steinberg told him to stay in touch, and he did — emails, phone calls, you name it. Then, gradually, the responses tapered off. Then they stopped altogether.
The brand-new law school grad was ready to give up. But when he told Dad he was moving on, Dad wasn’t having it. Jeremiah channels his father's voice: “Look, he told you to stay in touch. So until he calls you back and says, ‘Leave me alone,’ stay in touch.”
Yet another piece of solid advice. Donati parlayed his savings into a ticket to the 2005 Newport Beach Film Festival VIP gala because he heard Steinberg would be there. And then not only was Steinberg there; the famous agent apologized for not getting back sooner. An offer followed, a year and one day after Donati first made contact.
“I basically stalked him,” he admits. “I knew what I wanted to do. I knew I could help him. And until he told me that there wasn’t an opportunity, or to leave him alone, I was going to follow up. I wasn’t weird or creepy about it, but I could have walked away. A lot of people probably would have walked away.”
If not for Dad’s pep talk, Donati would have walked away, too. He chokes up thinking about it. Dad died unexpectedly a week after Donati got the job at TCU. “That was a baseball bat to the kneecaps,” he says, and there’s still a bruise. But as he glances out his new office window at Williams-Brice and imagines his future, Dad is in the front row.
“My dad was my best friend,” he says. “I still think about him all the time. I visualize him. I can still hear him talking to me. He was big into sports, and he was thrilled when I got the job at TCU. And he’d be so happy to see me here. He’d just be so happy.”
