Wolfpack foe comes right from the trailer

[ChiTownBull]

http://www.news-record.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051228/NEWSREC0105/512280314/1021/NEWSREC0205

In the beginning, there was the trailer. And the trailer wasn't very good.

It had very few amenities, unless you count the exterior walls. You could actually see the ground through holes in the floor of the bathroom.

No, this was not your typical creation story. But then again, when was the last time you heard of a university starting a football program from scratch, then playing in a bowl game less than 10 years later?

That's what's happened at the University of South Florida. On Saturday, the USF program will take the next step in its warp-speed climb toward the upper echelon of college football when it takes on N.C. State in the Meineke Car Care Bowl.

"It was a once-in-a-career experience and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," said Paul Griffin, USF's athletics director when the school began playing football in 1997.

And it all started with that trailer.

That's what Jim Leavitt walked into the day he began his job as the first head coach of the South Florida Bulls in December 1995. He had come to Tampa from Kansas State, where as an assistant coach he had played a key role in the "Manhattan Miracle," turning the Wildcats from a national joke to a national power.

K-State assistants were a hot commodity in the mid-1990s. Yet, Leavitt chose to start with nothing at South Florida. He even took a pay cut, going from $95,000 as the Wildcat's defensive coordinator to $75,000 as the Bulls' head coach.

more...just click the link couldn't get it to copy

[80mins]

The News and Record? I might have to trot down to my local paper box and buy that hard copy...

[The_Reaper]

Great article!!!

[E.T.]

... with atleast 100,000 alumni in the immediate area.  

[Matt]

very nice article