TCU athletic director Jeremiah Donati (left) talks with KTBB Sports Director Bill Coates during Coates' SportTalk Show on Tuesday at Willow Brook Country Club.

When Jeremiah Donati came to work at TCU in 2011, the Horned Frogs were in the Mountain West Conference.

The Fort Worth school then was in the Big East for about “20 minutes” and then landed in the Big 12.

It’s been a fast-paced few years and now Donati is athletic director at TCU.

He was in Tyler on Tuesday to meet Horned Frogs alums and fans at Willow Brook Country Club.

He grew up in Newport Beach, California, and attended college in the Pacific Northwest (basketball player at University of Pudget Sound in Tacoma, Washington) and then he came back to California for law school (Whittier Law School in Costa Mesa). Although the two institutions are not known for athletics, Donati is right in the middle of big-time collegiate sports and the so-called arms race (facilities).

Donati first ran the fundraising for the TCU Frog Club when he came to Fort Worth before ascending in the athletic department to become deputy athletic director before becoming the head man when Chris Del Conte left for the University of Texas in December 2017.

He noted that he read that about 75 percent of the current ADs in collegiate athletics have had some sort of background in fundraising. He has been in fundraising at the University of Arizona and Washington State.

Also, he worked for super agent Leigh Steinberg for five years.

His law degree and knowing the interworkings of the agent business can only help in the new age of college athletics.

Donati has played a major role in the Horned Frogs’ success in athletics development and facility upgrades. The most recent project saw construction begin in June for a $100 million Amon G. Carter Stadium premium seating expansion.

Although the rain has proved a hindrance, Donati hopes the project will be completed for the first game in 2019 — Aug. 31 vs. Arkansas-Pine Bluff.

He said the Power Five non-conference opponents for the Horned Frogs football team is scheduled from six-to-10 years down the road.

Current Power Five teams on the schedule include at Purdue (2019), at California (2020), vs. California (2021), at Colorado (2022), vs. Colorado (2023), at Stanford (2024), at North Carolina (2025), vs. North Carolina (2026), vs. Stanford (2027), at Duke (2028), vs. Duke (2-29) and Purdue (2030).

TCU scheduled California, Colorado and North Carolina schools because of the cluster of TCU alums in those areas.

Donati added he likes the Big 12-Big East Alliance in December and the Big 12-SEC Challenge in January for men’s basketball.

He said when a school is home for one of the events, they will be on the road for the other.

Both will be on the schedule beginning in 2019-2020 season. 

This season, the Horned Frogs will play Florida in Fort Worth for the SEC Challenge on Jan. 26.

Also, TCU will host the Maggie Dixon Classic, an annual early season women’s college basketball tournament that was first played in 2006. The classic is played in honor of Maggie Dixon, sister of TCU men’s basketball coach Jamie Dixon, who in April 2006, just after leading the Army team to their first ever NCAA Tournament berth, died suddenly due to an arrhythmia caused by a previously undiagnosed heart condition.

TCU will meet Army on Dec. 2 in Fort Worth for the 13th annual event.

“Obviously, that’s a huge deal for Jamie,” Donati said. “We hadn’t heard that Madison Square Garden was going to re-up for the Classic and Raegan (Pebley, TCU women’s head basketball coach) actually came up with the idea last year to offer to host it. It reinvigorated Jamie’s passion for the project and we are happy to say the Maggie Dixon Classic is coming to Fort Worth.” 

Donati and his wife, Nicole, live in Fort Worth and have two daughters, Colette and Naomi.