Leavitt/McCullum Summer Tour?  Where did it go?

[thatBULL]

Soon things will be corrected.  That was the entire purpose behind hiring a driector of marketing.  Allowing it to be one persons responsibility to promote the University while increasing revenues and attendance.  

With that aspect taken care off events such as around the Horns will work to raise funds for athletics and alumni participation with the program.  If I'm not mistaken a program such as around the horns would be targeted more at the alumni chapters rather than your casual fan.  

As much as it pains me to admit this we are not on the gators level when it comes to support from alumni, fans, or even the community.  Unlike the gayterds and noles we don't have rednecks with 2 teeth (and possibly a GED) that claims to be our biggest fan, that will fight to the death over one of our games, and will dish out half of his years paycheck (probably $6.15 per hour) to go to a few games.

The athletic department is working dilligently to create the new image of USF, but many outside of the university and outside of tampa even know who we truly are.  Are we USF?  Are we South Florida?  As they create a brand image and identity for the university everything will get much better.  It takes time, but in 5-10 years we will be big time (like the big 3 now).

[BullDoug]

Sorry, I don't agree with several aspects of this.  First off, having 40+ years of alumni is enough.  Somebody who graduated from USF 40 years ago is about 62 years old.  There's a diminishing return when you get much above that.  

Second, you need to do a little digging on your choice of schools.  The fourth school in success in California is definitely Cal.  They average 65,000 fans per game.  Meanwhile, the other schools you mention (Texas Tech, Baylor, Wake Forest) are in remote areas instead of an area where we have > 90,000 local alumni.  

Third, while the average disposable income in Tampa may be low, that's an average number.  I'm sure if you took a look at the average disposable income among college graduates or even USF graduates it would be greater.  

I know of several guys I went to school with at USF, including a few roommates.  Two of them are diehard Gat*r fans and have season tickets, even though neither ever attended UF.  Another former roommate is a season ticket holder at Miami and goes down for the games with a buddy who sends his son to USF.  THAT is the big problem - we can't convince our own alumni to support their alma mater instead of another team.  

The bulk of our current student body seems much more interested in going to Ybor than going to a USF event.  The only way things are going to change is for somebody at USF to make students believe that attending a USF sporting event is the thing to do.  Trust me, on a football Saturday, most students are going to Ben Hill Griffin Stadium instead of the Purple Porpoise.  We need that kind of drive on campus.  Ideally, USF could hire somebody like The Sheriff to rally students as a full time job and build that kind of support.  Then when those students become alumni they'll want to keep attending games as a way of remembering the good times they had.  

I'll step off my soapbox now...

USFFan

USFFan

Cal's distant past is not as achievement filled as the near past.  Only recently has alumni interest really peaked for the Bears.  That go's back to winning cures all.  Houston, TCU, & North TX are in populated areas and thier attendance is synonomis w/USF.  I could mention Temple, Rutgers, UAB, Tulane and Vandy...kinda as metropolitian U's that have mediocre attendance w/greater tradition than USF.

As for 40 yrs back & 62 yrs old, you fail to figure most of our oldest alums are barely grandparents.  The students in at USF now will graduate and attend games with thier kids.  Thier kids will have kids and the grandparent will take the grandkids or it will be a family outing.  Another thing is our alums aren't old enuff to kick the bucket & leave the AD money .  Additionally, USF did not have 15K students in 1970 either.  I might be wrong but the USF's attendance has kinda grown with Tampa.  There aren't many 50 yr old USF alums compared to UF or FSU in FL.  I actually worked with one that went UF, flunked out, got married, went back to school at USF, graduated and still has a Gator tag on his car.

I totally agree with the your last paragraph.  I believe the problem is most of the students on the Tampa campus are doing the community university thing.  Live at home, hang w/HS friends and do not see the value of creating tradition at USF and there are still a good amount of non-traditional aged students at USF.  Not to mention the ones that went up to UF & FSU, partied thier GPA to oblivion, came home, got the AA at HCC or St. Pete College (Drew U or 5th Ave U) and decided USF was the best economic choice for an education for the last two yrs.  All that and still remaining loyal to that Gator/'Nole/'Cane fan affiliation developed in HS.  Kinda sad if ya ask me.  I had a neighbor who has a USF criminology degree and has Gator plates on his SUV  :.

[USFreak]

 Trust me, on a football Saturday, most students are going to Ben Hill Griffin Stadium instead of the Purple Porpoise.  We need that kind of drive on campus.  

Are they mutually exclusive?  Why can't you do both?  

[Guest S.  Bien]

WOW, a lot of people want their cake and eat it too.

A few things should be put into perspective.

 Like a few said we're not UF, who has something like 100 fan/alumni chapters in this state- each with over a couple hundred members.   Running Jim around to speak only works if there are groups in outlying areas of the state (WILLING TO LISTEN).  It's demoralizing, or ridiculous to organize something in say Lake City if you're only going to get like 10-20 people to show up.  If you can promise a crowd full of people that will be excited and interested fans then call up the Athletic Department and I can guarantee that Jim will try to come and speak.  He's spoke at my church a few times, men's club meetings, Outback functions, local coaches meeting....  Otherwise, it's a waste of time asking why he's not here or there speaking to the 'common fan' that doesn't like golf.  Partly because it's up to those common fans to organize fan clubs and the speaking arrangements.

Second, and this is of the utmost importance, is schools like UF got big NOT only because of fans, but because of fans that are big donors.  These things are not mutually exclusive, and therefore it's important that USF performs many events for the affluent donor types.  One way to say filter out those types is to see who's capable of dropping say $150-350 per person on golf.  That's important because showing up at a speaking engagement doesn't guarantee anything, and doesn't get you close to the coach, and the benefit is all for the fan- unfortunately they need to be thinking about the best use of their time; and these golf outings pay for themselves, bring some extra dollars to the AD, and give them exclusive contact with wealth for hours.  Say you got a guy that pays like $1500 for a foursome, and drops another $2,000 for his company to sponsor a hole- I would say that's a guy we want the coaches talking to, hopefully eating at their banquet table and playing on their foursome- because that's a franchise, that's salesmenship, brilliance in marketing and sales.  A good salesman wants a captive audience, and would like nothing more than to in capsulate them for 4 hours talking only about their product.  That's how it's done baby.

As for family friendly thing, well this goes back to #1, assuming the turnout won't be demoralizing and yet fun it should be marketed and we should try to do more. Remember half of college athletics isn't about having 6 year olds playing catch with the coach.  It is more about esprit de corp, about cherishing one's own university and contributing for it's betterment and hopefully yours.  The University already does some nice family events in FAD, Spring Game, and a few special appearances and camps sponsored by the AD and the coaches.  Maybe 2 to 3 more will do, but this is something that's going to take time, and until then it's almost better we have them infrequently so we can store up some intensity.  

Doing golf, and family events should not be mutually exclusive events either.

[aragingbull]

Regardless of the success Eric Soncrant deserves some credit. He has been the front man in organizing many USF events.  I for one wish I could have participated more. We're getting there. Guys & Gals do know that just 30 years ago USF had pre-game events during basketball season for the boosters and the guest speaker was the "visiting teams" head coach. We have come a long way baby!! and it's dedicated people like all of you that will make it happen the way we want it. Everybody let's  own up and buy season's and attend the next round of USF events!!

[Brad]

Regardless of the success Eric Soncrant deserves some credit. He has been the front man in organizing many USF events.  I for one wish I could have participated more. We're getting there. Guys & Gals do know that just 30 years ago USF had pre-game events during basketball season for the boosters and the guest speaker was the "visiting teams" head coach. We have come a long way baby!! and it's dedicated people like all of you that will make it happen the way we want it. Everybody let's  own up and buy season's and attend the next round of USF events!!

Completely agree...

In the "build it and they will come" line, as fans we can't be the "they" part of that quote - we need to be the builders.

[USFFan]

USFFan

Cal's distant past is not as achievement filled as the near past.  Only recently has alumni interest really peaked for the Bears.  That go's back to winning cures all.  Houston, TCU, & North TX are in populated areas and thier attendance is synonomis w/USF.  I could mention Temple, Rutgers, UAB, Tulane and Vandy...kinda as metropolitian U's that have mediocre attendance w/greater tradition than USF.

I hate to break it to you, but Cal outdraws Stanford even in the worst of times.  And it's their distant (very distant) past that actually is more impressive.  Even their mid-distant past isn't horrible (Mariuchi's miracle season, Bruce Snyder and Russell White).  

North Texas isn't really a good comparison because of their conference status.  However, I'll give you TCU and Houston.  Still, we have more alumni living in our vicinity than either of them.  

USFFan

[CoolBull1]

So what you are saying, then, is the reason for ATH is to raise money -- the interactions with the coaches is secondary ??

If that is the case, then I do believe USF needs to revisit the issue.  These events should barely break event, not raise funds.  They should raise the profile of USF athletics, bring in the casual fans, introduce the community to the coaching staff, etc.  I can't imagine that athletics raised more than a few thousand dollars overall.

They can still have golf tournaments, but they should not be part of the Around the Horns events.  Otherwise, they are severly limiting their audience, and should expect similar results next year.

JMHO  :-)

This is accurate with regard to the break even...it is basically a break even proposition.  Let's not kid ourselves, the point is friend raising and that means you get yourself in front of who can bring the $.   Golf is a white collar event...so what?  That's where the $ are.  The coaches and USF are all for fan friendly but they still have a budget to meet and this contact is more about getting into new pockets.  It's the business side of college athletics.  So what?  It was a success and that's good for everybody involved.

[BullDoug]

Let me just say the golf thing is good.  Jim & Robert need to glad hand all USF's deep pockets but there needs to be the interaction with common folk too...when the fan base exsists.  And I'm not talking about sending CJL or CRM to Jax, Orlando, Naples, Panama City or even Ocala.  Just the 4-5 counties around Tampa Bay.

[Eric_Soncrant]

This is great stuff guys, keep it going.  Let me shed a little light on the purpose of Around the Horns and what we hope to do in the future.

Around the Horns is a "friendraising" event.  We hope that it is profitable at the same time but our focus is to make it as affordable as possible for someone to come out and see our coaches.  Believe it or not, $125 for golf and dinner is about as affordable as they come these days.  The $30 dinner the same way.  We cover our costs on the attendance fees.  There are other costs involved in putting these events on that we hope are covered by sponsorships.

This was the second year of the Around the Horns tour.  The first year we did luncheons and receptions.  We combined some with the Alumni Associations Community Luncheons.  We continue to work with the Alumni Associaiton on many levels but decided that the Around the Horns and Community Luncheons needed to be mutually exclusive from each other.  That's why you will see one athletic representative speaking at the community luncheons and more on the university and academics.

Our hope for the future is to grow these events.  We will look at this years events and decide where to do golf tournament/dinners and where to do just dinners.  You'd be surprised at where the "successful" events happened and where we struggled.  A huge part of the success of these events is the volunteers that help us organize them and recruit participants.  We can't run a half dozen of these events with just our staff and still pay attention to raising scholarship funds.  These volunteers make the event.

We will be discussing a schedule for next year throughout July with the hopes of sending information out throughout football season and basketball season promoting these events.  We will go back to the same locations as this year for sure (with some changes in what type of events we do right cubanbull), perhaps some changes in the golf in certain areas, and perhaps some new areas (other areas in Florida, Atlanta and Dallas have been discussed but no promises as of yet guys).

We have to take in budget considerations, staff considerations, the availability of the coaches, weather (we got really lucky this year except for Miami), other events (athletic auction, alumni association community luncheons, major university events, etc).  

At most of these events if you attended the dinner, you would have had the opportunity to sit and talk with Coach McCullum and a few others.  He doesn't play golf so he rides around the course and talks with everyone and then heads in and helps greet people coming just for the dinner.

Anyway, this has got to be the longest post I've ever done so I'll end on this.  We believe in these events and are committed to continuing to make them successful.  If you have ideas you can share them directly with me or offer to be on the organizing committee for the event in your area.  We don't overwhelm you with responsibilities and the meetings are fun.  I have a chat scheduled with Brad for sometime in July and will be more than happy to discuss this and other things with you then.

Until then, be nice to Tom Veit tomorrow night guys and I'll keep checking in.

Go Bulls!

Eric