Jeremiah Donati shares intense, hilarious Chris Del Conte story from time as Texas AD's agent

South Carolina Athletic Director Jeremiah Donati joined the Paul Finebaum Show on Wednesday, where he shared an awesome story from the time when he was his close friend Texas Athletic Director Chris Del Conte’s agent.

Donati, who was previously at TCU from 2017-2024, assumed the AD duties at South Carolina on January 2, 2025.

“Chris [Del Conte] and I have a long relationship in history, going back to our family days, the days of when I was really young,” Donati said. “He was 10 years old and our fathers were best friends. Chris, when he got in the scene of college athletics, I started working with him in the summers. And so, Chris was my boss, and Chris was great, and opened up a lot of doors for me at Washington State University and the University of Arizona.”

Donati spent 1997 as a marketing and development intern at Washington State before heading to California Polytechnic State University and Arizona.

“And then I went to [Whittier] law school and got out in the real world,” Donati said. “I was in London for the NFL game at Wembley, and I’m on the sidelines. It’s the Patriots and Buccaneers playing. This is when Tom Brady played for the Patriots. I get a phone call from Chris saying, ‘What are you doing?’ You know, it’s 90,000 people Wembley Stadium. He says, ‘I’m about to take this TCU job. Can you negotiate my deal?’ Well, okay, sure, I can call you back. I’m sitting out here, I’m on the sidelines. ‘No, I need to do this right now.”

“So if you know Chris, that’s kind of the sense of urgency in which he operates,” said Donati about his friend. “But got to a place I could talk and was able to help him out with some deal points and talk through those deal points. And ironically, you know, years later, that same contract format was what I signed when I became the AD at TCU So, I don’t know if that means I did a good job or a bad job but, yeah.”

Del Conte eventually did leave Rice and take over as Athletic Director at TCU in 2009, with his contract apparently being negotiated by the man who would follow him. Once Del Conte left for Texas in 2017, it was finally time for Donati to assume Athletic Director duties after bouncing around the program as the Executive Director of the TCU Frog Club, Associate Athletics Director and Associate Vice Chancellor for Athletic Development and the Deputy Athletics Director.