Brothers Step Forward in a Big Way for the `Canes
Feb. 16, 2011
By: Rob Dunning
CORAL GABLES, Fla. — Mark and Jason Squillante have been University of Miami football fans for as long as they can remember.
Their father, who grew up a college football fan in Rhode Island with no real ties to any team, quickly became enamored by the `Canes when he moved to Miami as an adult. His sons were destined to follow suit.
“When my dad came down to Miami, he was blown away that they were playing these high profile games,” Mark said. “He started bringing us to games when we were young because of this.”
What impressed their father – and later Mark and Jason – was the way the `Canes played. They had attitude, they were confident and they would do anything to defend their ground.
“That is what caught his eye on UM…because they didn’t shy away from playing anybody,” Mark said. “It took me a long time to understand that the home team could lose. We always won.”
Mark, now 37, and Jason, 35, would join their father on trips to the Orange Bowl in the early 80’s. Jason’s first game tagging along with his dad and his older brother was arguably the most famous game in program history – Miami’s 31-30 win over Nebraska in the 1984 Orange Bowl Classic to secure UM’s first national championship.
“When we were there, I remember my father saying `make sure you enjoy this because it will be the last time you get to see Miami win a national championship until you have kids’,” Jason said. “Little did he know…”
A 58-game home winning streak starting in 1984 and four national championships later, it has been a fun ride for the Squillante brothers.
“You know in the movies when people talk about how their father brought them to Yankee Stadium,” Mark said. “The Hurricanes are our Yankees.”
Mark and Jason’s love for UM has continued to grow since childhood and now the brothers have stepped forward in a very big way for University of Miami athletics.
Thanks to a generous donation toward the construction of the Theodore G. Schwartz and Todd G. Schwartz Center for Athletic Excellence, the Hurricanes’ strength and conditioning facility in the Hecht Athletic Center will be named the Mark and Jason Squillante Strength & Conditioning Center.
“We are sincerely appreciative of Mark and Jason’s tremendous support and generosity,” Director of Athletics Kirby Hocutt said. “Together we share a commitment to provide our student-athletes with the resources to be the best in the classroom, community and in competition.
“On behalf of our student-athletes, coaches and staff, we thank Mark and Jason Squillante for their leadership role as we continue our quest to become the elite athletics program in the nation.”
The brothers’ love for the `Canes obviously started at a young age, but it wasn’t until they had a chance to spend some time behind the scenes and inside the program that the Squillante’s had an opportunity to see exactly what UM is all about these days. Starting with Hocutt and Assistant Athletic Director for Development Jesse Marks, Mark and Jason were given that chance.
“While it began with a relatively small donation to the academic center, we really appreciated and shared the perspective that Jesse and Kirby would mention not just about the sports, but the student-athletes,” Jason said. “The more we got involved and got to see the vision, we saw the opportunity to step forward again.”
The insight into the program and most important, the people inside it, made it an easy decision for the brothers to play such a meaningful role in the new Schwartz Center.
“That is one of the big reasons that Jesse was able to get us to leap from a small donation to such a sizable one,” Jason said. “Everyone we met, all the way to the new coaching staff, has a certain cultural perspective.
“For me, I feel like they are bringing back the ways of the 80’s and 90’s, but without the bad attitude side of it,” Jason added. “I feel like now it’s about winning, hard work, work ethic and an earn-what-you-get attitude. Miami is getting it done both in the classroom and on the field.”
His older brother agrees.
“Jason has been working with Jesse and Kirby for a while and he has been telling me about how everyone at UM has been treating him,” Mark said. “When I finally met them, they made me feel comfortable working with them with this type of donation. I felt that they all worked hard, they were very welcoming and it felt very comfortable that this money was going to the right people to use for the right reasons. I have always liked UM, but the people leading it also have to be the right people to make sure things are done properly. It is just a good feeling for me.”
The Squillante’s decision to provide support for the new building and have their name attached to the strength and conditioning center is not surprisingly tied back to their childhood. Jason said the three facets of UM football that he most remembers growing up were The Orange Bowl, the Greentree Practice Fields and the team’s weight room – the three locations most critical to the Hurricanes’ storied success on the gridiron.
“I like what the gym represents,” Mark said. “It is the work that people don’t see is what translates to the athletes’ performances on the field. It is the preparation. That is the real hard work.”
Ultimately though, this gift was as much about the direction of the athletic department as it was childhood memories.
“Supporting a program is important, but I don’t want to support it in the wrong direction because then you are just giving a crutch to a problem,” Jason said. “We see now that we are going in the right direction, we are getting the right people and we have people who understand what is important us. It makes us want to support.
“We want to be a part of bringing back `The U’ to where it was,” Jason added.
Fortunately for the University of Miami’s future, the brothers have recognized something special happening in Coral Gables.
“We’re not doing this because we want to be a part of a program that is on top of the college football world at the moment,” Jason said. “We are doing this because we’re convinced that Kirby and his department truly have the vision, the work ethic and the culture to get us back to the top by doing it the right way.”
