Sun-Sentinel with nostalgiac look at Bulls

[Brad]

South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com

Bulls' rise carefully crafted

By Charles Bricker

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

October 3, 2007

It was four days after the Friday night win that vaulted South Florida's young and astonishing football program into the top 10 for the first time and the man many credit with delivering this baby 11 years ago had not called his close friend and confidant, coach Jim Leavitt, to present his congratulations.

"I only call him when he loses," said Paul Griffin, the senior associate director of athletics at Georgia Tech. "Which means I haven't called him at all this year. I only call when his spirits need to be picked up."

Griffin hasn't been employed by USF since he left the athletic director's job five years ago to move to Atlanta, but those who were present at the birth of South Florida's masterfully planned and executed football evolution say no one is more responsible for the school's success.

"Oh, I'm not sure I look at it in that context," said Griffin, who would happily give you the names of dozens of people who had a part in the school's rise from no football program of any kind to No. 6 this week in The Associated Press poll. "Just call me an equity shareholder."

Just call him a great planner, a man who had a vision of taking this largely commuter school of 44,000 students and growing it into a football power with a series of carefully calculated moves and without once rushing into more turbulent NCAA waters before the right time.

He set out the goals and objectives three years before the first snap. He hired the right people — Leavitt to coach the team and Pro Football Hall of Fame defensive end Lee Roy Selmon, a Tampa sports icon, to help sell the product.

He set the timetable to go from Division I-AA to I-A, from an independent to Conference USA to the BCS-related Big East.

If ever there was a blueprint for starting a college football program and turning it into a success, this was it.

Saturday afternoon at Lockhart Stadium, the Bulls, 4-0 after stunning No. 5 West Virginia 21-13, pursue their seventh consecutive victory against 2-3 Florida Atlantic. There is every expectation that they will leave here undefeated to face a rigorous drive for a first major bowl berth.

Griffin began the football process at USF in 1993 with a series of brainstorming sessions with community and school leaders, with a heavy emphasis on a long and deliberative building process.

"Other schools who had done this had jumped in more quickly and they had problems along the way," Griffin said. "We wanted to make sure we had a solid game plan and, although a lot of things we envisioned had to be changed along the way, the initial planning served us well."

Among the essential early elements: raise $5 million in cash contributions up front and sell 5,000 season tickets before approaching the Board of Regents for approval. "We had to show people there was substance behind what we were doing," Griffin said.

They not only reached those goals, but sold 10,000 season tickets the second year. The fund-raising was led by Selmon.

"Lee Roy was not only a great human being but a tremendous icon. He would be what the South Florida program would be about, and that image was very important to us."

They got rent-free use of Tampa Stadium and, when it was built, Raymond James Stadium, and having a 65,000-seat arena was instrumental in moving to Division I-A (now called the Football Bowl Subdivision).

But perhaps the most important decision Griffin made, in December of 1995, was hiring Leavitt, then 39, who had grown up in St. Petersburg and who was eager to come home to coach after assistant jobs at Iowa and Kansas State.

Leavitt is tall and slender with hair that seems to defy combing. He's meticulous, driven and verbose — a man given to many words, which might be the key to successfully recruiting high school talent against Florida, Florida State and Miami. He's also just two years into a seven-year, $7 million contract which was a reward for turning down an offer to coach Alabama in 2003.

He's had opportunities to leave and insists he's right where he wants to be. Home.

"Jim brought things that were unique," Griffin said. "He had coached at some small programs [Morningside and Dubuque in Iowa]. He had done without, learned to work without. Sometimes, you get people in situations where they can't deal with those restrictions."

Leavitt for several years worked with his staff out of trailers behind the USF baseball field, where the occasional thump of batted balls interrupted meetings inside the portables.

He didn't have a big budget then.

Griffin now has a fine office at a well-endowed school, but those trailers at USF won't be easily forgotten. They are, in a sense, a signature to the first 11 years of South Florida football.

"You have to admire your humble beginnings," Griffin said. "It makes what you accomplish more valuable and Jim Leavitt would tell you he never lost a game because of those trailers."

Charles Bricker can be reached at cbricker@sun-sentinel.com

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[Mama_Bull]

Thank you Brad for posting this article.  Enjoyed reading it.

[flsportsfan83]

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/college/sfl-flspusf03nboct03,0,830449.story