Opportunity Squandered

[NewEnglandBull]

2 minutes ago, WhoRUSF said:

If that is the mindset, then stop wondering why the Tampa natives don't support the team. It is because the university doesn't care what you've contributed, and isn't focused on winning. Optics are more important. 

Firing Leavitt and not caring if you gave money are not mutually inclusive. The real problem is our alumni refusing to show loyalty to a university they drove to everyday and then went home; and being a fan of one of the other two. 

[Triple B]

4 minutes ago, WhoRUSF said:

If that is the mindset, then stop wondering why the Tampa natives don't support the team.

Who's wondering? There's so many other major sports in the area, plus they follow the college teams they grew up rooting for, there's no interest in watching USF v Tulane/Tulsa/etal ....

[bullsbucsfan426]

Jim Leavitt was the ultimate coach-entrepreneur. He took a program operating out of trailers and turned them into a power-conference contender in 10 years. Heck, even if we hadn't gone to the Big East, I feel assured that the players he recruited in 2003-2005 would have led to multiple CUSA championships and firmly would have sunk UCF-early. He just knew how to get players to well-outperform their level. By the time the 2011 conference realignment rolled around USF would likely have been banging on the door of the P5 anyway. 

I told ADMK this 2 years ago at a basketball game-you need a coach who is not going to just coach, but will go to every Rotary, Lions Club, Chamber of Commerce, and BNI to build the relationships with the middle class donors who can probably give 5k to 10k a year. I STILL think that applies if CJS would be willing to do it too. 

That said, I don't think we're done, and a lot of it depends on us. MIami is slowly slipping into BYU status. They haven't won anything nationally relevant in 16 years and are surviving off their ACC affiliation, the memories of the past, and the FSU-Miami rivalry. Every time they come across a true national contender they've gotten destroyed (aside from the absolute destruction they visited on ND in 2017). 

Thursday night was hard to take. I couldn't bear it at all. At least with CWT's turnaround I felt some hope, and it eventually was rewarded. The 2014 season wasn't fun in a lot of ways, but we were competitive in most games, and Marlon Mack certainly gave us some promise. Thursday night...I know there were at least four or five opportunities that would have given us a chance to stay in the game until the very end. We missed all of them. That's most games, to be honest. The game stays close because the better team misses an opportunity, and the lesser team rallies to make some opportunities of their own. NC State made the most of almost all of their chances while we missed at least two shots for TDs and had a miracle play go NC State's way that could have at least made it a 3 or 7 point game at the half. I don't feel rewarded, and I sat through the worst of it in 2013 and 2014. I stayed to the very end of that 2013 Miami game. I bore the "UCF" chants in 2014 at Ray Jay. 

IF there's nothing else, by golly we need to find a way to beat UCF at the end of the year so if they leave next year we will always have the overall series lead over them. Otherwise they'll view it as one more checkbox to tick before they can say "USF is finally for good in our rear mirror). 

[WhoRUSF]

14 minutes ago, Triple B said:

Who's wondering? There's so many other major sports in the area, plus they follow the college teams they grew up rooting for, there's no interest in watching USF v Tulane/Tulsa/etal ....

We killed the interest trips... I was living around the country between 2011-2016 and when I mentioned being a USF fan, you would be so surprised how many people knew of the mad man Jim Leavitt... the angry guy doing sprints, and thought it was awesome how fast he raised this program's status. Multiple people asked "What ever happend to them?? I haven't heard of them in awhile!" 

Having a symbolic coach like that... the Gary Paterson of TCU... Bowden of FSU... Peterson of BSU.... 

Iconic coaches and identities resonate with people... But the pea brains at USF spit on Jim Leavitt and changed our uniforms so often that our squad was unrecognizable from the limitless potential teams of 2007-2010. 

Edited September 4, 2021 by WhoRUSF

[bullsbucsfan426]

I may as well add on-

The new USF president will have a lot of help on the academic side, and he or she needs to leave that to Ralph Wilcox, who best I can tell has been doing an excellent job. The next president needs to be a networker, a schmoozer, a community-driven entrepreneur who is going to make athletics part of his strategy to lead USF into a brave new world. Someone suggested Brian Lamb. If we landed him I think that would be a coupe. He's obviously seen the issues that USF has faced while serving on the BOT and I suspect he was a major reason USF advanced as much as it did on D&I initiatives. Can he make it work as well with the marketing and athletics? He's obviously got huge connections in corporate America and globally, but he will need to work the Tampa Bay angle too. I also wonder how much he did previously to ensure that sports were supported at USF-or if Genshaft and Currall after her made the point to ignore it. 

There also needs to be some kind of effort to reach out to the billionaires who actually make  Tampa their home for some kind of large donation for athletics. We have at least six that live here-Tom James who owns Raymond James, Ed Debartolo (who may be the first guy we try to work with), Ronald Wanek (owns Ashley Furniture), Robert Duggan (owns Summit Theurapeutics), and Todd Christopher (who sold Vogue). Plus Jeff Vinik of course, but we already have a relationship with him. 

10 years ago it would have been easy to pull this off. Heck, DeBartolo may have backed USF just to spite the Bucs. But now? It must be tried regardless of result. 

I also heard on TOS that Currall basically hamstrung the IPF building until it was 100% funded. **** fool move if true. We needed that a year ago. 

 

 

[Triple B]

3 minutes ago, WhoRUSF said:

We killed the interest trips...

i think it was a combination of on the field and demotion. The latter years of Skip/early years of Willie and playing teams a lot of people had barely heard of. Maybe things would have been different if Skip was able to have elevated us a bit over where CJL left off. CSH had some name ooc wins and maybe if he had been a more serious contender in conference, even though a conference with less notoriety, interest may have been maintained. We'll never know ...

[WhoRUSF]

6 minutes ago, Triple B said:

i think it was a combination of on the field and demotion. The latter years of Skip/early years of Willie and playing teams a lot of people had barely heard of. Maybe things would have been different if Skip was able to have elevated us a bit over where CJL left off. CSH had some name ooc wins and maybe if he had been a more serious contender in conference, even though a conference with less notoriety, interest may have been maintained. We'll never know ...

So we are going to pretend firing Jim in that manner had no affect on the interest in our program? 

[Triple B]

3 minutes ago, WhoRUSF said:

So we are going to pretend firing Jim in that manner had no affect on the interest in our program? 

Obviously to some, and maybe for a bit, but in the overall scheme of things it should not have the long lasting effect some are attributing to it. Coaches get fired, you move on ....... eventually.

[CousinRicky]

6 hours ago, Brad said:

That's one assumption. 

Some of them di give or began to give.   I'm not talking T. Boone Pickens Trip.  I can tell you the ones I was aware of left when Leavitt was sacrificed.

The people that were pissin & moanin at the RU 31 - 0 game are still donors as far as I know.  I'm sure there are those that left but many have stuck around.

[CousinRicky]

33 minutes ago, bullsbucsfan426 said:

I may as well add on-

The new USF president will have a lot of help on the academic side, and he or she needs to leave that to Ralph Wilcox, who best I can tell has been doing an excellent job. The next president needs to be a networker, a schmoozer, a community-driven entrepreneur who is going to make athletics part of his strategy to lead USF into a brave new world. Someone suggested Brian Lamb. If we landed him I think that would be a coupe. He's obviously seen the issues that USF has faced while serving on the BOT and I suspect he was a major reason USF advanced as much as it did on D&I initiatives. Can he make it work as well with the marketing and athletics? He's obviously got huge connections in corporate America and globally, but he will need to work the Tampa Bay angle too. I also wonder how much he did previously to ensure that sports were supported at USF-or if Genshaft and Currall after her made the point to ignore it. 

There also needs to be some kind of effort to reach out to the billionaires who actually make  Tampa their home for some kind of large donation for athletics. We have at least six that live here-Tom James who owns Raymond James, Ed Debartolo (who may be the first guy we try to work with), Ronald Wanek (owns Ashley Furniture), Robert Duggan (owns Summit Theurapeutics), and Todd Christopher (who sold Vogue). Plus Jeff Vinik of course, but we already have a relationship with him. 

10 years ago it would have been easy to pull this off. Heck, DeBartolo may have backed USF just to spite the Bucs. But now? It must be tried regardless of result. 

I also heard on TOS that Currall basically hamstrung the IPF building until it was 100% funded. **** fool move if true. We needed that a year ago. 

 

 

The problem runs deeper than the president.  It goes to the Board of Trustees and faculty leaders when it comes to Athletics.  The guy that just left/got fired was being convinced that Athletics was important. Suddenly, for that and other reasons, he was gone.  I've only been around since early 2000's but my feeling it was more than Judy and Doug that were the issue. It runs deeper.  Don't we know have a FSU guy (Weatherford) leading the hunt for a new Prez?