A Real Gladiator For Gibbs

By all accounts, Gibbs High in St. Petersburg is a mess.

Basic human civility is an oxymoron. Teacher morale is in free-fall. Vandalism is an extra-curricular activity. Serious students are hostage to an educational meltdown. All of which is a reminder that a new, $58-million facility is a guarantee of nothing.

Pinellas School Superintendent Clayton Wilcox has stepped in by assigning some top administrators to help out the (34-year-old, first-year) principal, transferring the worst of the worst students to alternative schools and dispatching maintenance crews to clean up the trashing.

Better late than never, of course.

But here’s another idea. Send in a real gladiator; start all over; and take back the school. Take it back from thugs, Neanderthals and assorted misfits who have been allowed to dictate an agenda of academic and disciplinary travesty.

SOS to Joe Clark.

Clark is the former principal of the once notorious Eastside High School in Patterson, NJ. His autocratic, “tough love” approach in the 1980s turned Eastside into a New Jersey “model school” within two years. And, yes, he earned his share of enemies: punk students and teachers uncomfortable with confrontation. Also resulted in a movie: “Lean on Me,” starring Morgan Freeman as Clark.

Also warranted a classic comment from then-President Ronald Reagan, which should serve as practical advice for Superintendent Wilcox. “Sometimes you need Mr. Chips,” noted President Reagan, “and sometimes you need Dirty Harry.”

Corporate Name Game

The Outback Bowl remains a New Year’s Day winner. It sells out; it garners good ratings; it showcases the Tampa Bay area; and it provides marquee match-ups – witness this year’s Penn State-Tennessee pairing. And in the ever-evolving, naming-rights game, it even sounds like a bowl game.

Which is no gimme these days.

Increasingly, bowl games have been going exclusively with corporate sponsors. As in the Meineke Car Care Bowl, the Chick-fil-A Bowl and the Papajohns.com Bowl.

But Outback works. It connotes athletic and rugged – not just a restaurant chain.

Actually, the first draft – back in 1996 – was “Outback Steakhouse Bowl.”

Sometimes you add by subtracting.

USF: A Fitting Celebration Of 50 Years

USF continues to celebrate its 50th anniversary in the most fitting fashion – by continuing to grow. In quantity and quality. From less than 2,000 students to 44,000. From nothing to more than $300 million in sponsored research grants.

And don’t forget this is an institution that once suffered such unkind appellations as “Sandspur U.” and “Bottlecap U.” Even some of the serious would-be names, such as “Citrus State University” and the “University of Florida at Temple Terrace” were hardly flattering or identity enhancing.

Now USF’s image includes being the 9th largest university in the country – one with more than 200,000 alumni and more than $3 billion in annual economic impact on the Tampa Bay area. Moreover, USF rapidly has ratcheted into a prototypical urban, research university – with a charge to apply knowledge and partner with its surrounding community.

And in this, its golden anniversary year, it is still fast-forwarding in impressive fashion. Just this month:

*USF-St. Petersburg and the Silicon Valley research firm SRI International announced an eye-opening joint venture to develop and market high-tech marine science products.

*We also learned that two alums, Les and Pam Muma, had committed to a $6 million gift (to be supplemented by matching funds) to foster neonatal research at USF and construct a neonatal intensive care unit at Tampa General Hospital.

*There was the blockbuster news that USF-based Moffitt Cancer Center would collaborate with pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co. to form M2GEN, a drug-development company specializing in cancer therapies. The prospects include extended and saved lives as well as a 10-figure economic spin-off.

*Finally, there was last week’s announcement that Betty Castor would be back at USF – starting next week – as executive director of the Dr. Kiran C. Patel Center for Global Solutions.

It was political icon Castor, the former president, who made USF a player in Tallahassee and presided over across-the-board growth during her 1994-99 tenure.

Having the can-do Castor on the same campus with the regionally savvy incumbent, President Judy Genshaft, bodes well for USF’s future.

Starting with year 51.

Holiday Sampler

*A sure, if not jolly, sign that a Hyde Park residential construction project has been around a while: The red Christmas bow on the Port-a-let.

*There are, of course, all manner of Christmas-week rituals – most of which seem to involve malls and the spirit of last-minute shopping. Then there’s that occasional, very special, very moving example of ultimate gift-giving.

This one happened last week and involves man at his best – putting his ingenuity and generosity to work in common cause with nature. In this case it took the form of three ultra lights guiding 17 whooping cranes safely in their Wisconsin-to-Central Florida migration. There’s no more important gift than life to the vulnerable, although eliciting a smile and a tear at the same time is also pretty precious.

*Holiday hero: Would that the words “car jacking” and “Christmas time” never shared a context. But they did recently. And if it wasn’t for one brave man, Jason Sorrow, coming to a would-be victim’s aid, the results could have been tragic – not just frightening. While a crowd kept its distance and watched a screaming woman struggle with a carjacker in a Kash n’ Karry parking lot, Sorrow jumped in to foil the act and helped hold the assailant for police.

Hopefully, there’s no next time. But if there is, then Sorrow’s actions will have been a graphic example of how one person can, indeed, make a difference.

Sorrow’s exploits are also a reminder of what a real hero is. The term is woefully demeaned in our society, especially in athletic arenas. Real heroes are few and far between – but one was surely in that Kash n’ Karry parking lot last week.

*Here’s hoping everyone has had a very happy holiday so far and, more to the point, here’s hoping everyone had a very Merry CHRISTMAS.

Nelson’s Road Trip To Damascus

There was no apparent epiphany for Sen. Bill Nelson on his recent road trip to Damascus, even if he did discern a “crack in the door” for better relations with Syria. But his diplomatic freelancing did achieve his goal.

His resume now includes another “fact-finding” sortie to the Middle East and a — however confusing and ineffectual – high-profile, one-on-one with Syrian President Bashar Assad. That still matters if you still entertain hopes of a place on the undercard of the 2008 Hillary/Obama Democratic smack-down. He still does.

Dream on.

Sound Advice For GOP

In the post-Karl Rove era, the Republican Party will have a lot of soul-searching to do if it wants to reverse the message sent in last month’s mid-term elections.

Syndicated, conservative columnist David Brooks recently offered up some sound advice for GOP strategists looking to re-tool the party’s approach to the issues – and the electorate. Two of his suggestions:

*”Don’t focus on groups, focus on problems. If you have persuasive proposals to address big problems, the majority coalition will build itself.”

*”Raise taxes on carbon emissions and use the revenue to make the tax cuts on capital gains and dividends permanent. This would spur energy innovation and encourage investment.”

Crist Comeback

He hasn’t been sworn in yet, but already Gov.-elect Charlie Crist has made a major comeback. As soon as the pricey-gala news had hit the populist fan, he admitted it was a dumb idea. Not good for a kinder-gentler Republican hybrid.

And then he hits one out of the park with the appointment of Bob Butterworth, the well-regarded — and Democratic — former Attorney General, to run the Department of Children & Families. DCF has become synonymous with failure and re-abuse and its leaders relegated to a revolving-door tenure.

Butterworth, who has history with DCF, is a proven leader who works both sides of the political aisle.

Gubernatorial rhetoric – from open government to preparations for a post-Castro Cuba – comes easily. Especially when the job is not yet yours. But the Butterworth appointment was a concrete sign that “the people’s governor” might be more than a campaign slogan.

John Iorio: The Missing Ingredient

Like most of you, I don’t tune in regularly to watch the “Mayor’s Hour” on CTTV, Channel 15. Truth be told, I mostly happen upon it when channel surfing.

Anyway, I do make an effort to watch in December. That’s when Mayor Pam Iorio invites her father, John Iorio, to spend some quality culinary time with her and the viewers. They cook and they chat and they feed each other straight lines. It’s unabashedly corny stuff, the likes of which you’d never see in most cities – let alone the hub of a major metropolitan market. But Tampa, as we know, is a city with a small town feel. The Mayor’s “Holiday Cooking Show” is a warm reminder.

Only this year, John Iorio was too ill to go on. Instead there were highlights of the 2004-05 holiday shows plus footage of this year’s Festa Italiana, featuring the dueling Iorios.

But it just wasn’t the same without the irrepressible “Red Sauce Master” this holiday season.

The Season “Hoosiers” Came To South Tampa

When Plant High School won its 4-A state championship game against defending champ Ponte Vedra Beach Nease two Saturdays ago, it was the first state football championship for a Tampa team since Richard Nixon was a rookie president.

But this wasn’t just a long-awaited win for a Tampa team. It was also an urban “Hoosiers,” a feel-good, vicarious victory for the tight-knit, small-city community within the city that is South Tampa. And it was a well-savored triumph over a stubborn stereotype.

Look at the Plant student parking lot sometime, and you’re reminded that there is affluence here. Look at the higher education track record of its grads, and you’re reminded that academics have always been paramount.

And if you looked at the football team a few years ago, you were reminded that the Plant kids were considered too “soft” to be good at a tough, physically demanding, non-country club sport.

Well, so much for that myth. You don’t even get out of Hillsborough County without being tough enough – let alone skilled enough.

To Plant’s everlasting credit – and the stuff that legacies are made of – the (15-0) Panthers didn’t just run the table in a fanatical football state full of blue-chip college prospects and high-powered programs. They won with class.

No prima donna attitudes and no strutting, “look-at-me” boors. No recruiting, “remuneration” or criminality scandals. No marginal, athlete-luring magnets.

Just a bunch of talented, hard-nosed kids that bought into a philosophy and a value system. The one embraced and embodied by Robert Weiner, 42, the third-year head coach.

Weiner, the long-time Jesuit assistant who had been passed over for the JHS head-coaching job, is known for his uber organizational and motivational skills.

Nobody, he preaches, transcends team. Nothing is more important than loyalty and hard work. Everyone’s contribution – from All Everything, record-setting quarterback Robert Marve to kids whose roles are relegated to the practice fields – is valued and acknowledged.

Weiner’s a disciplinarian and demands that his players improve – on the field, in the classroom and in the community. And he doesn’t just talk a good game; he’s been a counselor at Muscular Dystrophy camp for more than 25 years.

Moreover, Weiner is the perfect role model for impressionable student-athletes. He didn’t let the Jesuit disappointment deter or discourage him. He’s Exhibit A for academic and athletic priorities – in that order. He’s an English teacher/coach. One who writes poetry and can quote Thoreau, Shakespeare or Dylan more readily than Lombardi, Rockne or Paterno.

One who made his players believe they weren’t soft. Who instilled a sense that life was not a spectator sport nor meant to be taken for granted. Who was father figure, big brother, favorite uncle and unabashed humanitarian.

And, lest we forget, one who provided a South Tampa community with its own Hoosiers-like rallying cry, focus of pride and storybook ride for the ages.

Panthers rule.