Why we are called South Florida

[bcgruber]

For those younger bulls and some old ones like me here is a great history that I didn't know:

Why our school was the University of South Florida when Tampa is not in south Florida. 

So  everyone, here's your answer. As far as I can tell, there are four main reasons.

1. The name "University of Tampa" was taken.

2. Florida looked a lot different 50 years ago. Once you got south of Tampa and St. Petersburg, there wasn't very much civilization until you got to Miami and Fort Lauderdale. You could reasonably consider Tampa part of south Florida because not that many people lived in the real south Florida. No one would do that now with the population explosion in places like Sarasota, Fort Myers, and Naples (which went from about 15,000 residents in 1960 to over 250,000 in 2000, and it's probably even higher now).

3. When USF was founded, it was the southernmost public university in Florida. The University of Miami already existed as a private school, but the only three public schools were Florida (in Gainesville), Florida State (in Tallahassee), and Florida A&M (also in Tallahassee).

[slick1ru2]

I want to know how back when USF started to play on TV amd get known they were elling everyone they wanted to be called USF, NOT South Florida. Now USF is called South Florida for sporting events and UCF is UCF, NOT Central FL.  Did someone at USF see that UCF was telling the media to call the school UCF, not Central Fl and decided that USF needed to go the opposite direction? I remember distinctly having a conversation about this with my cousin in like 2007, that the school wants to be called USF, not South Florida.

[raptorcj]

I linked to it last year (can't find it now), but there was actually a section in our USF preseason football notes that specifically mentioned "we are USF...not South Florida, SFU, etc", made me think "huh, good on ya" but no one listened and we're even more consistently named South Florida on all team score references. It's not like we haven't tried to assert ourselves into owning the acronym over San Fran, but we're losing the battle.

 

To OP, thanks, good info and thanks for trying to help explain. But all us Florida natives know that once you get below Tampa's latitude, you're magically transported to the northeast US... 

[George_Bullnard_Shaw]

What's the 4th reason?

[Bullshutter]

per the official USF page:

 

October 22, 1957
The Florida Cabinet approves the name "University of South Florida," in part because it is the southernmost university in the state at the time. Representative Gibbons hopes the name of the university will ensure the support of legislators in southern districts, many of which fall under USF's area of operation.

 

http://www.usf.edu/about-usf/history.aspx

[jasonb56]

a bit off topic, and really just a hypothetical question, but if we were named (assuming we bought UT in the 60's) University of Tampa, would that have helped us separate ourselves from UCF on a national scale?

 

Strictly speaking from a "Market Recognition" perspective...

 

along those lines, hypothetically... if UT was up for sale... should USF try to buy them?

 

just shooting it out there...

[raptorcj]

per the official USF page:

 

October 22, 1957

The Florida Cabinet approves the name "University of South Florida," in part because it is the southernmost university in the state at the time. Representative Gibbons hopes the name of the university will ensure the support of legislators in southern districts, many of which fall under USF's area of operation.

 

http://www.usf.edu/about-usf/history.aspx

So there you go, reason #4: mo money

[NewEnglandBull]

They screwed up the name...short sighted decision

[TallyBull]

They screwed up the name...short sighted decision

Seems like the "South Florida" term of art reference to Miami/Ft. Lauderdale really developed after the university was named. So I'm not sure it was so much a screwup as just a change over time due to growth south of Lake Okeechobee.

And when you think about it, the name still has some validity. If you divide the state in half by drawing a line through Orlando, we are in "northern" south Florida.

[Skingraft]

Below highway 50 = South Florida