The Tribune makes a great first impression...

[CyberBull]

Henderson takes an opportunity to take more shots at USF while praising Coach Heath. For a newspaper that cries all the time about the lack of media friendly coaches, it sure went out of it's way continue to mock USF and it's fans. IMO, it looks like Coach Heath will be more media friendly than CRM but do you think he is going to like to wake up in the morning and read the local rag trashing his new program? I don't expect the media to be our marketing department but I do expect it to be fair and objective.  Everyone knows that USF hoops has struggled....so why bring it up again when a welcome to Tampa type of article would have sufficed?

Maybe I am just too sensitive after all the cheap shots the last three years but there should have been a different spin on the first column about our new coach. It should have talked about USF FINALLY taking the first step in making a strong commitment to the basketball program. Why make the job even harder?

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Winning Is Old Hat To Heath

By JOE HENDERSON

Published: Apr 4, 2007

Stan Heath is charismatic, enthusiastic, and actually has won a lot of basketball games as a head coach. If ever a place needed someone like that, it's the University of South Florida.

We know about the wretched history of the program, which is pretty much like the wretched present of the program. Or at least it seemed pretty wretched until Tuesday, when Heath officially began his attempt at pulling the sword out of the stone - which, come to think of it, may have been an easier job than pulling 20 wins out of the men's basketball team he now coaches.

But there he was, anyway, smiling, preaching and promising better days straight ahead. He took the job after a search that had been in the news so long, it was starting to rival Anna Nicole.

His appearance Tuesday afternoon so excited Bulls Village that a large crowd turned out for an introductory news conference/pep rally, even spilling out of the Big East Room at USF's athletic complex.

It was either that or the free sushi. Either way, it was also a bigger turnout than some home games last year. Or the year before.

Folks applauded a man with three trips to the NCAA in six years as a head coach. They cheered. They ate sushi.

And when Heath was presented with a USF cap for the obligatory picture of the new guy, he smiled and said directly to his players that since they won't be allowed to wear a hat indoors, neither would he.

The guy has only been here one day, and he is on a roll.

Name The Court After Him

Athletic Director Doug Woolard went through pretty much the whole Rolodex before deciding Heath was his man. I don't mean that in a bad way. If someone ever coached basketball, played basketball, watched basketball, or owned a DVD of "Hoosiers," Woolard talked to him.

It was going on a month since Robert McCullum was fired. Completing the deal took one week after Arkansas decided Heath wasn't its man - firing him despite a 20-win season, a trip to the SEC Tournament finals, and an invitation to the NCAAs.

Tough town, Fayetteville.

Let's just put it this way: win 20 at USF, go to the Big East finals, and then to the NCAA? Say it with me: Stan Heath Court at the Sun Dome.

Make it to the Elite Eight, as Kent State did under Heath's coaching: The University of Stan Heath.

But let's get serious. The fact that we jest about those incentives says how low expectations at USF really are. Heath will be expected to change all that, which is why he will make $675,000 annually, guaranteed, for five years.

The total package with incentives is worth about $4.2 million. Fun fact: An NCAA championship will earn Heath a $50,000 bonus. And his mug on Mount Rushmore.

The package is about average, to be honest, for big-time college programs, but it represents the Great Awakening for USF. As will the charter flights the Bulls will take to and from at least some games next season. As will the practice facility that Woolard assures is "on the radar" now.

It's a start.

Work To Do

Heath is supposed to be a master recruiter. This is a good thing. Time and again last weekend at the Final Four, we heard that USF just needs more players if it hopes to compete in the Big East.

But, honestly, they've been saying that about USF for the last 30 years. They were always one player away in the Sun Belt, one player away in the Metro, a player or two away in Conference USA. The Big East? Uh, wow.

That's another way of saying no one has been able to get enough of the difference-making kind of players to make the commitment to USF.

Heath may be that guy. He has enough of a name in the game that McDonald's All Americans won't automatically double over in laughter when "USF" shows up on their caller ID. And if he needed more incentive, he conceded he has a bit of attitude after Arkansas did him wrong.

"I'm motivated anyway. I'm going to get the job done regardless, but there is a little bit of a sting, a little bit of an edge I'll carry on my shoulders," he said.

If first impressions count for much, things have a chance to be really different now at USF. At some point, that sword has to come out of the stone. Doesn't it?

[AndytheBull]

I only read half of it, what an ass. A great day, a great feeling in that room, and nobody was eating the **** sushi when the press conference ended.

[___ Eats It]

This one doesn't bug me as much... at least the overall thrust of the article is that we're taking the program seriously now and that he's a great coach.

Take your positives when you can get them from the Tampa Fib.  They'll be riding our jocks soon enough when CSH turns this around...

[Velcro]

No they won't, they'll switch to finding out what traffic violations the women's golf team has

DISCLAIMER:   NO THAT WAS NOT A SUGGESTION!!

[JoeBulls]

I actually thought this was a pretty funny article...

[BigShoop]

Yeah he took a couple cheap shots, but really, what did he say that wasnt true?

I think it was fine...

[Metro_Retro_Bull]

Times is better

[South_Florida_Flip]

Crow will be best served when Coach Heath turns things around and gets things going.

[Brad]

I only read half of it, what an ass.

Same here.

Wonder if a-holes like that know they only amuse themselves.  

[Brad]

Oops, and JoeBulls.