Paul Griffin

[JoeBulls]

There has been very little talk on this board about the man that I believe set the foundation for USF's success..

I would like to know what many think abou the man who hired CJL -- who brought our atheltic department out of the "red."

I think this university owes a lot to him.

my 2 cents.

[JoeB]

I'd have to agree.  Paul Griffin was the start of our program trying to get into the big leagues.  He did an admirable job while at the helm.

[Guest BasketBull.]

I could start the count " # of days since Paul Griffin was fired " again, but many would be mad at me, just like the first time I did it.  ;D  

...ah, memories!  ;D

[Metro_Retro_Bull]

Never really liked him when I had to interview him, rubbed me wrong.

[SRQ]

Paul Griffin was the best administrator USF has ever had as an AD.  His PR skills were lacking, and so far DW seems to be close to his level as a department leader while having a far higher ability on the 'soft' side.

USF is not in the BE without Paul Griffin.

[SMHUSF]

Paul Griffin was the best administrator USF has ever had as an AD.  His PR skills were lacking, and so far DW seems to be close to his level as a department leader while having a far higher ability on the 'soft' side.

USF is not in the BE without Paul Griffin.

Agreed, Paul was a great adminsitrator. He lacked on the people skills. When I was there we had an on going pool in the athletic department where the pot would go to someone who got PG to give you a high five.  His nickname was Darth Vader.

[Brad]

There has been very little talk on this board about the man that I believe set the foundation for USF's success..

I would like to know what many think abou the man who hired CJL -- who brought our atheltic department out of the "red."

I think this university owes a lot to him.

my 2 cents.

Griffin was good, but what I find funny about your fondness for him is the "mediocrity" that engrained itself at USF during Griffin's tenure.  Who did he fire for performance related issues?  Not to be a JoeBulls, but where were our higher expectations then?

Griffin was good at what he did, but Herman would have noted that the man had no personality.  

To be clear, Griffin accomplished a lot at USF while not posessing a cup of personality and allowing mediocre sports success.  I'm thankful for what he did, but I will not make him larger than life to overshadow other ADs, past and present.

We got in the BE because of LRS and his team of people that worked tirelessly promoting USF to the Big East.  We'll be successful in the BE because of people like DW and his team.

[USFFan]

There has been very little talk on this board about the man that I believe set the foundation for USF's success..

I would like to know what many think abou the man who hired CJL -- who brought our atheltic department out of the "red."

I think this university owes a lot to him.

my 2 cents.

Griffin was good, but what I find funny about your fondness for him is the "mediocrity" that engrained itself at USF during Griffin's tenure.  Who did he fire for performance related issues?  Not to be a JoeBulls, but where were our higher expectations then?

Griffin was good at what he did, but Herman would have noted that the man had no personality.  

To be clear, Griffin accomplished a lot at USF while not posessing a cup of personality and allowing mediocre sports success.  I'm thankful for what he did, but I will not make him larger than life to overshadow other ADs, past and present.

We got in the BE because of LRS and his team of people that worked tirelessly promoting USF to the Big East.  We'll be successful in the BE because of people like DW and his team.

I agree that Griffin wasn't USF's version of Frank Broyles, but there's no way we're in the Big East without him.  First off, Griffin steered the athletic department out of the finacial mess created from Lee Rose's free spending, he engineered our moves from the Sun Belt to the Metro and managed to secure our spot in Conference USA when we were on the brink of being excluded.  He convinced the state to allow us to start football after the nightmare that happened at UCF and nearly bankrupted their athletic department.  Without those accomplishments, we're not even close to sniffing the BCS.  

Now, with that said, I also don't know that Griffin had the juice to carry us through from where we were to the Big East.  I think it took the charisma of Lee Roy Selmon to bring that home.  Griffin completely botched the whole Winters firing and, frankly, I'm not yet convinced that he handled the Perri Hankins firing properly.  He also let Eddie Cardieri run what was once our most successful sport right into the ground.  

So, in total, he did a number of great things for which we should all be eternally grateful.  However, he was far from perfect...

USFFan

[RealitySmackdown]

There has been very little talk on this board about the man that I believe set the foundation for USF's success..

I would like to know what many think abou the man who hired CJL -- who brought our atheltic department out of the "red."

I think this university owes a lot to him.

my 2 cents.

Griffin was good, but what I find funny about your fondness for him is the "mediocrity" that engrained itself at USF during Griffin's tenure.  Who did he fire for performance related issues?  Not to be a JoeBulls, but where were our higher expectations then?

Griffin was good at what he did, but Herman would have noted that the man had no personality.  

To be clear, Griffin accomplished a lot at USF while not posessing a cup of personality and allowing mediocre sports success.  I'm thankful for what he did, but I will not make him larger than life to overshadow other ADs, past and present.

We got in the BE because of LRS and his team of people that worked tirelessly promoting USF to the Big East.  We'll be successful in the BE because of people like DW and his team.

You are so wrong about Paul Griffin and winning. With Paul Griffin as USF's AD USF did nothing but win. He hired the only coaches to take our men's and women's basketball programs to the NCAA tournament. In Conference USA, for the years under Griffin, USF had more combined NCAA appearances, plus C-USA regular season and tournament titles than any other school. We didn't have the budget of Louisville or Memphis but no school won more than USF. The leadership of USF Athletics today, was still mostly hired by Griffin, these department leaders lead USF into the Big East (LRS as one of them, who was also wisely hired by Griffin)

I am confident that in time history will record that Paul Griffin was the driving force that lead to USF's rise to greatness. Other AD's will be at USF for national championship and other great accomplishments, but PG and the people he hired laid the fondation for the greatness.

By the way, he had a personality and a great sense of humor if you got to know him, but he was also smart enough to realize his limitations and the voice of USF Athletics during his tenure was LRS and Coach Leavitt (another pretty good PG hire).

[Brad]

Don't get me wrong, I think PG was great for USF.  Just putting the overall performance in perspective for those that say USF accepts mediocrity - remember our two trips to the NCAAs over our entire history was considred lame by some of those praising PG.  Much of that mediocrity in baseball and basketball occurred in his admin.  We didn't make aggressive changes - probably for good reason.  Afterall, PG did have to correct the finances.  

Just those that criticize the overall hoops program and then praise PG, need to realize PG was in charge of that hoops program for quite some time.