Greg Auman

"Yeah. It's like a cow's opinion. It doesn't matter."

moot! moot point!

it was the top note in our front-page rail, which is usually a mishmash of notes and teases to stories inside the section so it usually isn't posted online. here's what ran: Don't worry, college football fans. Florida A&M's renowned marching band, above, is coming to Tampa on Sept. 10, when the Rattlers play at USF. FAMU is reducing its athletic budget by $3-million and has cut the travel budget of its Marching 100 band. But Julian White, the band director for six years, said Thursday he has been reassured by interim president Castell Bryant. ""The president has reiterated to me that the band's travel is not going to be affected,'' he said. … GREG AUMAN, Times staff writer

hey folks. we did a short note in today's paper to say that the FAMU band will be in tampa for the USF game in september. their band director said he has been assured that the band will be at every game -- it's as big a draw as the football team is these days. greg

St. Pete Times, June 23 USF: Reserve center Konimba Diarra, who requested a release last month, will transfer to the College of Charleston. The 6-foot-10 sophomore, who averaged 1.2 points and 8.2 minutes, will sit out this season and have two years of eligibility left.

just to be fair here, they haven't averaged 17,000. saint louis averaged 17,000 in home attendance in 97-98 - think their attendance was sixth-best in the country that year. but last year, they averaged 8,030, and two years ago, it was 8,918. not to scoff at 8,000 fans, which would be a remarkable turnaround for USF. they're just not getting 17,000 there anymore.

i think one reason woolard was well-suited for the USF job is that the tampa market -- from the Bulls' perspective, at least -- is actually a lot like the st. louis market. both have one major college in a metro area, competing with pro franchises in the NFL, NHL and MLB. one thing woolard mentioned when we did our Q&A was that his marketing goal is to get USF in the same breath as the pro teams here, so just as folks in st louis would say "Cardinals, Rams, Blues and Billikens." one thing woolard mentioned about kosha (it's co-SHAY) is how much energy he has. he'll start july 18, same day as the big east preseason football meetings in rhode island. greg

for what it's worth, my 2-year-old now loves Chocolate Lucky Charms (it was a sample at Publix; he gets caught up in identifying the marshmallows). and my wife, sadly, is from the Goodbar camp, a rift we're still working to overcome. and i was completely objective until woolard answered, and only then did i reveal any hidden Krackel allegiance. greg

ok. "other" is leading the voting. if we're going to have a respectable cereal poll, i'm with velcro: get Cinnamon Toast Crunch on the ballot. I'm channelling my inner 8-year-old here, but how can Grape-Nuts make the ballot? It's gravel!

I think the root of Leavittation's unhappiness is that he's secretly a "Hershey's Special Dark" fan and knows that his favorite rarely makes anyone's top three. Don't mess with crisped rice, people! greg

sorry, sheriff. didn't mean to leave you out. best way to answer your question is that my newspaper's policy has the home team's beat writer write the game story when two teams we cover play each other, and since the usf-uf games are in gainesville, that means the gator writer would write the game stories on those. probably not the answer you were looking for. greg

hey all. good thoughts here, both liking and disliking the Q&A. our "kicking back" interviews are usually pretty laidback, so sorry if you're not used to reading them and expected some Mike Wallace interrogation. as far as future football scheduling, hey, i'd like to get answers on that too, but Woolard has a personal policy of not commenting on any scheduling negotiations or potential opponents. he just doesn't do it, as a rule. it's not that i hadn't thought of the question, i just knew there wouldn't be an answer. and he's not going to shed any light yet on which stadium gets built first -- nothing beyond the Sun Dome renovations will happen for the upcoming school year, and they're still in the feasability studies for the other facilities. in general, he's pretty fair to all media outlets in that if he's going to break news about USF, he'll do it in a press release that everybody gets. and the upper deck will be open for the FAMU game. i might do a note to update the ticket sales this week. a Q&A like this has to try to reach all readers, not just the elite-level Bulls fans who read this board. i'd like to have more insider information that you guys would appreciate, but most of my readers just want to get to know a public person on a more personal level. doug's a guy who's full of good stories, so i could do a few of these each year and never run out of stuff. could do one on his basketball playing days -- he went up against doug collins in high school, and his college basketball coach also coached walt frazier just two years before he worked with doug. his son chris is director of championships for conference usa - another basketball player turned athletic administrator, a lot like his dad. tons of little nuggets like this. fun stuff. if anybody who missed the chat wants to talk with me, again, e-mail me at aumanac1@aol.com, or call my cell anytime at 813-310-2690. i'll drop in on the chatroom if you want to chat there. i like talking with you guys -- any opinion about USF athletics, however angry with me you might be, is going to give me a different perspective on how I can cover the Bulls. greg

good questions! and maybe i can do another one on november 9, just as basketball gets going. i've got to save some of these questions for the chat though. i'm certainly with you guys in wanting a more thorough and reliable USF page on the sptimes.com site, but a lot of that is out of my hands. we should have everything I write about USF on that page, and i'll continue to ask our online folks to try to address that as best as they can. the best way you can make a difference with our USF coverage is by sending an e-mail to sptsnews@sptimes.com any time you have a thought or suggestion -- good or bad -- about our coverage. i look forward to chatting on thursday -- take it easy on me, ok? greg

hey. just starting to plan coverage for the fall. obviously there are a lot more big, compelling games on the schedule this season compared to last. i feel a lot more familiar about things at USF after a year on the beat, and i'm excited about a lot of stories that could come together this fall. greg

ChiTown: What newspaper is that clip from? lmk and thanks greg

USF will have 11 scholarship players for 05-06, with Aris Williams sitting out and one scholarship still unused. seniors: Holmes, Jones juniors: Prekevicius, Mattis, Sills, Richardson, Buckley sophomores: Dennis freshmen: Howard, Cann, Markusovic

hey. mccullum really didn't explain why aris is transferring. said homer drew didn't have a single bad thing to say about him, said drew called him the most athletic player on the team. said williams is a better player than stores, so aside from losing frontcourt depth for this coming season, it's an upgrade for that scholarship. i'm trying to get in touch with aris this afternoon to find out more about why he's transferring. on stores, mccullum said it's too early to know anything on his future and whether usf is a part of it. i get the sense that with the new priorities toward continuing eligibility -- the importance of a good APR and the threat of scholarship loss with a bad APR -- they want to be all the more careful about bringing in kids they feel confident can do well academically at usf. that said, mccullum said he's very confident that the other six members of the class (seven, with aris) will have no problems academically. greg

hey. USF should have a release out soon, but the Bulls have added a 6-foot-9 transfer from Valparaiso, a forward named Aris Williams. Will have three years of eligibility after sitting out the 2005-06 season. At same time, McCullum said today that Brandon Stores, the power forward from Cincinnati, would not be academically eligible to join USF for the upcoming season. could maybe bring him next year. greg

He was fourth on the team with 11 catches for 153 yards and one touchdown.

Veit's title is "associate AD for marketing and business development." He and Jim Louk have both had marketing as part of their jobs, but now USF will have someone working exclusively on marketing. Marketing is still a big part of Veit's job, especially with football and other big sports, and Louk will handle ticket sales and radio contracts, as well as continuing as the radio voice for many Bulls broadcasts.

no, thanks to you guys for the tip! talked to her yesterday, seems like a good get for coach lessinger. falin (pronounced fallon, like jimmy) said she chose USF in november but hasn't officially signed, will soon. her first priority is definitely volleyball -- she'll be a right-side hitter, she said. if she can fit it in her schedule after volleyball season, she'll join the basketball team as a walk-on. i don't believe jose had a walk-on on the team this year, so it just adds to depth at shooting guard. greg

Stores was only at IMG for about a month. That's why he's not listed as being from there. He only played one season at Cincy's Christian Center Academy and one season at George Junior Republic in Pa. greg

TSA just called me back, and they had forgotten to include recruits and other extras in the total, so it's actually a crowd of 4,241 now ... greg

hey. mea culpa here. i checked with Tampa Sports Authority today to get an actual attendance for Saturday's spring game at RayJay -- the real number of tickets taken at the game -- and it's actually higher than the 3,800 announced as the attendance. that makes it more than double last year's actual attendance. again, it really didn't look like that when we tried to get a feel for the crowd from the press box, but guy i talked to said there was a steady crawl of people coming in well after kickoff. anyway, i'll have something on this in wednesday's weekly notes, but wanted to post something here since the attendance or perceived lackthereof has been a big topic of debate since saturday. greg

hey. on the crowd thing, it wasn't just a guess. we floated a crowd estimate around the press box at end of the first quarter -- plenty of time for late arrivals -- and there were others that ballparked it at closer to 1,000. any newspaper account will call it "an announced 3800." i'll check into getting an exact number that came through the turnstiles, and i'll get that number in the paper this week, whether it's higher or lower than the 1500. it wasn't a bad crowd at all, really, but i really don't think it was 3800 fans either. greg