Hitt Impacted UCF Athletics Like a Linebacker

"You get more accomplished with patience and sugar than you do with angst and salt."
                                                                        --former UCF president Dr. John Hitt 
University presidents come in all shapes and sizes—and oftentimes their relationships with burgeoning, major-college athletics programs can be complicated.
 
Yet there was never a thought that former UCF president Dr. John Hitt, who died Monday night at age 82, didn't have an appreciation for what sports could achieve and represent on the Orlando campus.
 
Maybe it was Hitt's own athletic background as a football player at Austin College in Sherman,  Texas.
 
Maybe it was all timing, based on the fact that when Hitt assumed the role of president in 1992, virtually every department on campus needed more resources and a facility upgrade.
 
Maybe it was the enthusiasm generated by rubbing elbows with UCF athletics director Steve Orsini and football coach George O'Leary in creation of a dream for an on-campus football stadium.
 
As O'Leary once said, "The sleeping giant has to wake up at some point."
 
O'Leary still remembers the night of one particular UCF "home" football game in downtown Orlando at the original Citrus Bowl. Once the game ended, into the locker room strolled Hitt and benefactors Jerry Roth and Dick Nunis. They informed the Knights' head coach that they expected to build a stadium for O'Leary's football program on the Central Florida campus.
 
That may not have been the most important decision Hitt made relating to UCF sports. (Remember that in his very first year in 1992 he announced plans for UCF to begin competing at the Football Bowl Subdivision level within the next handful of seasons.) But it certainly ranked right up there.
 
Current UCF senior executive associate athletics director David Hansen, an athletics administrator with the Knights since 2006, long admired the fruits of Hitt's athletics interest and endeavors, even when they were understated.  
 
"He was like a chef," says Hansen. "He put together some great ingredients to build some really good recipes that worked. He always got the right people in the room to get things done."
 
Longtime UCF observers agree that the leadership Hitt provided from day one carried the institution impressively through a period of very aggressive growth.
 
"To see where UCF was when he arrived and where it was when he left was pretty amazing. He guided quite a journey by this institution," says Hansen.
 
"Building the stadium (Bright House Networks Stadium that opened in 2007) changed the culture of the university. For so long we were referred to as a non-traditional commuter school—and those aren't the institutions that are powers in college athletics."
 
There's an old saying that athletics can be and often is the front porch of a university, especially when it comes to public relations. That may not have been true at UCF when Hitt began, yet it certainly was in his final football season on campus when the team finished 13-0 and won both the Peach Bowl and the 2017 national championship.
 
"He set his vision for the institution and didn't waver when people said it couldn't be done," Hansen says. "John wouldn't accept that—he kept forging ahead. And there were a lot of people saying it wasn't possible."
 
Orlando Sentinel columnist Mike Bianchi some years back quoted former UCF linebacker Shaquem Griffin who referred to then-Spectrum Stadium (now FBC Mortgage Stadium) as if it was a real person: "We love her. I'd hate to think where we would be without her."
 
Added O'Leary, "A new stadium couldn't win you football games by itself. But what it did do was generate some excitement and give fans a true sense of place and something to come back to. It showed the commitment Dr. Hitt and the administration had to football and supporting the athletics program at UCF."
 
In 2016 UCF named its athletics scholarship fund the John and Martha Hitt Athletics Scholarship Fund.
 
"He believed in the transformational value of the student-athlete experience," says Mark Wright, current UCF associate vice president and deputy athletics director for the ChargeOn Fund.
 
"John once said, 'Some people say give until it hurts. But I don't believe that. I say, give until it feels good.'
 
"He lived that motto and inspired others to do the same. He believed in giving to make an impact and UCF and Orlando are better thanks to him."
 
Longtime faculty member Richard Lapchick, one of the more astute observers of college athletics, began his role at UCF in 2001 taking over the endowed chair in the DeVos Sport Business Management Program. He later began publishing annual academic rankings for teams that played in bowl games and NCAA Basketball Championships and diversity report cards for all institutions competing in sports.
 
Lapchick readily admits now he was wrong in disagreeing with Hitt's plan for UCF to go big-time in football.
 
"When Orsini got here you could hardly get students out of the tailgate parties into the Citrus Bowl (that was 15 miles west of campus). Yet our campus quickly became one where nearly everyone wears UCF garb and paraphernalia.
 
"I now realize how wrong I was and how right John Hitt was."
 
Said American Athletic Conference commissioner Mike Aresco today: "John Hitt will always hold a special place in the history of the American Athletic Conference. John was instrumental in the formation of the conference more than a decade ago, and his transformational leadership of UCF helped the conference to enjoy immediate and sustained success.
 
"Above all, John was a good man who had the trust, respect and admiration of all who knew him. I treasured our friendship and have many fond memories of my visits with John at UCF."
 
A number of UCF coaches hired during Hitt's tenure spoke about him after his death:
 
"It's hard for me," said Knight men's basketball coach Johnny Dawkins.
 
"I just learned of his passing and that really knocked me back.
 
"He hired me here, he interviewed me and I remember him being a great man. Where we see UCF now and where we're headed, in my opinion, he laid a great foundation for that.
 
"He's the one that put the university on the upward trajectory and you have to be an incredible man to pull that off."
 
Added baseball coach Greg Lovelady in a Tweet, "We aren't here without him."
 
Hitt won't be around to see the Knights' next big play—into the Big 12 Conference beginning in 2023-24.
 
Without Hitt's 26 years of guidance and vision, that invitation might have been extended elsewhere.