Month: January 2006

USF At 50: A Bullish Future Beckons

The year was 1956.

Dwight D. Eisenhower was re-elected president. Grace Kelly married Prince Rainier of Monaco. The Yankees beat the (Brooklyn) Dodgers in the World Series. Rocky Marciano retired undefeated. “My Fair Lady” debuted on Broadway. “The King and I” was a box office smash. Elvis Presley recorded “Hound Dog” and “Don’t Be Cruel.”

And the University of South Florida was born.

For those of us older than USF, was that a fast 50 or what?

For those of you younger, yes, there really were “Sandspur U” sobriquets back in the day. And, indeed, there was a time when athletics maxed out with intramural championships. And any reference to USF seemingly required an almost apologetic “commuter school” qualifier. USF wasn’t Florida; it wasn’t Florida State; it wasn’t even IN South Florida.

Now it’s the second largest public university in the Southeast, with more than 43,000 students. By 2010, 6,000 will be living on the Tampa campus.

USF is a 21st century research university that is a big-time player in a major metro market and anchors one end of the I-4 tech corridor. It is known to the National Science Foundation as one of the two fastest growing research universities in the country. Research funding now totals nearly $350 million.

USF began with three buildings; the current figure, including new student housing, is almost 400 on four campuses. There are more than 200 graduate and undergraduate programs. Its colleges of medicine, public health, engineering and business are key community partners and bay area recruiting assets. USF is the fourth largest employer in the region, with an annual economic impact estimated at more than $3 billion.

And those intramural leagues have morphed into a Big East affiliation, which guarantees exposure in the country’s largest media market (New York). After only nine seasons, USF played in its first bowl game last month.

And, yet, a university is so much more than the sum of its disparate parts. It’s more than bricks and mortar and payrolls and grants and endowments and TV exposure and enrollment explosions. It’s also having half of your (190,000) alumni living and working in the Tampa Bay area. It’s being home to the nationally acclaimed Graphicstudio. It’s being a de facto corporate headquarters – only the implications are as varied as advances in Alzheimer’s research, consultations on urban transportation issues, expertise in marine science or contributions to national security via bio-defense and sonar innovations.

And sometimes, it’s as mundane as a bunch of college kids getting down and dirty to help their community. That’s what happened a couple of weeks ago when USF’sStampede of Service Day drew more than 1,000 students from sororities, fraternities and service clubs to East Tampa to clean up parks and roadways.

One other thing.

Sorry, but I’m still steamed about that Connecticut game.

Go, Bulls.

St. John’s Passes Tolerance Test

Perhaps you heard about the extended family that is the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas, that recently barnstormed through Tampa, rhetorically pillaging as it went. Maybe two dozen in number, they shouted their offensive litany at several sectarian venues, including St. John’s Episcopal Church in Hyde Park. The Westboro web site, www.godhatesfags.com, pretty much tells you everything you need to know to have an informed opinion of them.

They are precisely what we see entirely too much of: loathsome yahoos and repellent odd balls deigning to speak for the Deity. Pat Robertson never looked so elevated.

I witnessed the confrontation at St. John’s, winced at the vulgar hectoring and placarded insults and admired the tolerance and discipline of the 400 congregants who were subjected to the spew-fest. My most charitable thought: “Nothing good ever comes from inbreeding.”

Even the Rev. Douglas E. Remer, rector of St. John’s, got a hearty, probably off-the-record, perhaps therapeutic, laugh out of that one.

“When we heard they were coming, my first inclination was to give them a cup of coffee and invite them in to worship,” acknowledged Remer. “But the police said not to. Not to give them the satisfaction and the publicity.

“I thought I was prepared for their level of viciousness, but they surpassed that,” added Remer. “Not just slogans but personal insults – even to the (sidewalk queuing) chalice-bearers. That’s what I found most offensive. But not one of our folk took the bait.”

So, how did that Sunday’s sermon go?

“We have just witnessed the personification of hateful, hurtful behavior,” he told the congregation. “Within the context of everything we know, that is outside the bounds of Christian living. All we can do is control how we act. To return hatefulness is to sink to their level.”

No one did.

Inexplicable Parental Belief

As we know all too well, there’s been a recent rash of criminal cases involving sexual relationships between teachers and students. While the dynamics are all different, a common thread is that adults in positions of authority have abused a sacred trust and taken advantage of a child under their tutelage. All are nearly impossible to fathom.

What was truly inexplicable, however, was a father’s reaction to the sentencing of the Lecanto High School teacher and coach, 36-year-old Amy Lilley, who had engaged in a sexual relationship with his daughter.

“I don’t believe she is a victim,” he said of his daughter, now all of 15. “I believe that two people can fall in love.”

That can’t help.

Prepping For County Commission?

Could there really be something in the water? Why do we keep having these highly publicized, outlandishly unnecessary issues such as the controversy over the “Welcome To Tampa/ City of Champions” signs? When you say “Champions” and then you note: “Super Bowl,” “Stanley Cup” and “Arena Bowl,” isn’t it obvious what you’re getting at? Three Tampa-based franchises recently won championships (well, 2003-04).

But to throw the New York Yankees, who spring train here and are owned by the philanthropic, Tampa-residing George Steinbrenner, into the signage mix is beyond irrelevant. Historically, the Yankees have been baseball’s gold standard, but there’s a very good reason why they’ve been called the “Bronx Bombers” for nearly a century. And, frankly, it’s been a while since they’ve won a World Series. But they do have local signage; it’s all over the taxpayer-underwritten “Legends Field.”

This whole flap about including the Yankees should actually embarrass Steinbrenner, if not certain city council members. Especially Rose Ferlita, who has most vocally made the specious point that “the Yankees are the home team.”

Maybe the only relevant point is this: Ferlita, who is stepping down from city council, is already prepping for the county commission, where parochial, needlessly divisive and petty issues are routinely raised, if not venerated.

The Huff Stuff

Aubrey Huff, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays’ outfielder/first baseman, has been popping off of late about how the organization should either trade him or stop talking about it.

Two points.

First, not even a team gag order could prevent major media speculation about Huff and several other Rays with market value, substantial salaries and approaching free agency.

Second, trading Huff is more problematic than it should be. It’s no secret that hustle isn’t part of his game – nor is he a positive presence inside the locker room. If Huff wants to effect a trade or improve his peace of mind, he should play like it: be more productive and less obstructive.

Martinez Wants Politics Out Of Baseball Classic – As If

Now that the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control has relented and issued a special license, Cuba will be allowed to play in the 16-team World Baseball Classic. For its part, Cuba said it will donate any profits to Hurricane Katrina victims. End of issue.

Not, however, if you’re Cuban-American Florida Sen. Mel Martinez. He now has taken up the cause of Cuba’s team not being “wholly representative of Cuba” because none of that country’s defectors will be permitted to play.

“If this is about baseball and not politics as Major League Baseball has suggested, then take the politics out of it and let Cuban-born players compete for Cuba,” said Martinez.

Presumably with a straight face.

“Munich”: A Horrifically Powerful Polemic

Whenever a movie’s prologue informs you that the film was “inspired” by something, you know that artistic license has been invoked and flat-out fictionalization employed. And then, more often than not, some controversy ensues. The director, it is revealed, has an agenda – only it comes with having been “inspired” in the first place.

“Munich” is no exception.

Steven Spielberg’s depiction of Israel’s assassination-team approach to avenging the Palestinian murders of Jewish Olympians is, at its core, a polemic: violence only begets more of the same. It’s ever spiraling. It’s been said before, of course, but rarely in such riveting fashion.

That powerful message transcends and trumps all other “Munich” takes, including the charge that the movie is undermined by moral equivalence, and Spielberg has hatched an anti-Israel tract. And that in so doing, he has taken too many pains to humanize Palestinians targeted by an amoral Israeli hit team with a job to do and humanity to set aside.

What Spielberg has done is to remind us – via imbedded ironies, a perversely empathetic protagonist and a compelling mastery of the action genre – that at the end of the day humanity is the net loser. Humankind has been diminished, historical and religious rationales reduced to footnote insignificance.

Perspectives are never perfect, but their consequences are determinative. Whose land? Whose history? Whose grievances? Whose holy book? Whose murderers? Whose martyrs? Whose innocents? Who’s more wrong?

Across the continuum of carnage, the questions become moot.

“Munich” should be required viewing. Alas, it won’t be seen – or if seen, meaningfully internalized – by those it could impact most.

One other point. No one has given it away, and I won’t either. But “Munich’s” final, establishing-shot scene is perfect. As in soberingly so.

Gov. Jeb Adds Need-Based Aid

Florida’s ongoing challenge to attract black students to its universities – especially from out of state – is being pragmatically addressed by Gov. Jeb Bush. The governor has recommended spending more than $50 million in the 2006-07 budget for more need-based aid and the creation of a first-generation scholarship program. Minorities are disproportionately represented in such criteria.

Critics and cynics, however, have found the recommendations an opportunity to retrospectively bash Bush for his One Florida plan that eliminated affirmative action in higher education. In so doing, they note, he created a situation that would inevitably lead to a diversity default. They also cite statistics such as Florida ranking first (of the 10 most populous states) in grants that are unrelated to financial need.

But let’s not jettison all context here. Grants based on merit – quaint concept that it is – deserve a better spin than that.

More Self-Serving Rhetoric In King’s Name

One can only wonder what the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. would make of all that is said in commemorating his life. Perhaps the dream gets lost in translation. More likely, it too often morphs into rhetorical self service.

Sounding not unlike Kanye West, Sen. Hillary Clinton told a mostly black audience in a Harlem church that she was apologizing to Hurricane Katrina survivors for a government that “turned its back on you.” Clinton, who had been tacking to the political center, then ratcheted up the pander-speak by descending into an analogy of the (Republican-controlled) House of Representatives to a plantation.

“The House has been run like a plantation, and you know what I’m talking about,” declared Clinton to thunderous approbation.

King’s most remembered and revered lines were calls for inclusiveness – not slavish exercises in partisan divisiveness.

Then there was New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin. Sounding not unlike a Crescent City Pat Robertson, he told a crowd at City Hall that not only will the city be rebuilt as a “Chocolate New Orleans,” but in so doing it would be “the way God wants it to be.”

Nagin has a hard enough time speaking for himself, let alone presuming to channel the Almighty with a demographic invocation. And this from a black politician who has arguably been part of the pre- and- post Katrina problem.

In an ironic way, however, maybe King’s words were revelatory. Wherever there is scapegoating, political pandering and race-baiting there is character content on display – irrespective of skin color.

Of Football Programs And “Perks”

When Armwood High head football coach Sean Callahan was going through the interview process at Valdosta (Ga.) High, there was more than speculation that he might leave. There was also – abetted by the media – criticism that greater appreciation hadn’t been lavished on Callahan and his ultra-successful program that had earned two state championships and a runner-up the last three years. And make no mistake, “appreciation” meant Hillsborough County doing more to keep him – like adding some perks.

Wasn’t it a disgrace, went the reasoning, that Armwood’s Lyle Flagg Stadium had, for example, no field house. Moreover, the locker room wasn’t air-conditioned and the weight room was unconscionably undersized. There wasn’t even a separate office for Callahan. And Armwood’s coaches were still subject to the countywide supplement of $3,200. If the program wanted something extra, such as trophy cases, nicer signage, or new practice-field sod, it needed to go the fund-raising route.

Two points.

First, there’s a lot to like about high school football, not the least of which is excellence achieved through effort, perseverance and teamwork. In some cases, it leads to scholarships that otherwise wouldn’t be forthcoming. And amid all the options open to young people in an increasingly churlish culture, this is still among the healthier avenues for having fun.

Having said that, we’re still talking about a game. An extracurricular activity like no other to be sure, but still a game. It’s not why students are in school. It’s not more important than most other school activities. It shouldn’t be yet another reminder that we live in a society skewed toward deified, double-standard athletes.

And, frankly, I’m glad we’re not Valdosta, where the head coach can make nearly $100,000 a year and doesn’t even have to pretend to “teach.” And where the facilities rival many college programs. All of which is absurd, and that genie of priorities run amok can never be rebottled.

The Hillsborough County School District has myriad challenges, including overcrowding and underfunding. It doesn’t need to underwrite pricey perks for sports programs, no matter how laudably successful.

As for Armwood, per se, pride, pep rallies, proclamations, banquets, scholarships and success for its own sake will have to do.