Bulls And Rays

*The pre-season college football rankings of the Associated Press have USF in the top 35. That’s higher than Notre Dame. Who ever would have thought?

*Devil Rays principal owner Stuart Sternberg will make the official call regarding manager Joe Maddon’s status next month. It’s expected that Maddon, a refreshingly nice guy whose team has the worst record in baseball, will be retained. Here’s Sternberg’s rationale: “Joe has done everything that we’ve asked, and as long as we’re continuing to progress and change and we’re on the same page, everything’s fine.”

Putting aside meaningful definitions of “progress,” “change,” “fine” and exactly what that “page” is, here’s a question: Do you think, perhaps, you didn’t ask enough of Joe?

Law And Disorder At FAMU

By all accounts, the 5-year-old, Orlando-based Florida A&M Law School has not fared well. Barely half its students pass the Florida Bar Exam; faculty quality is questionable; leadership is a vacuum and full accreditation by the American Bar Association is far from a given.

It’s also worth reflecting on the irony of that site-selection charade back in 2000. Tampa, which was offering free land, finished behind Orlando – and Lakeland – in the running for the ostensible plum that was the FAMU Law School.

But do recall Tampa’s consolation prize: the Tampa Law Center & Campus of the Stetson University College of Law. Not only is accreditation not an issue, but the imposing, 73,500-square-foot, neo-Spanish Mediterranean facility has been a major catalyst for Tampa Heights’ development and revitalization.

And one other thing. Stetson actually bought the 7.7-acre, North Tampa Street (and razed the old Tampa Police Department headquarters) site for $11.2 million.

And one final thing. Regardless of civil rights implications and the pay-back raison d’etre , no, we didn’t need another law school. And, no, we still don’t need more lawyers. Period.

Nancy’s Graceless Shtick

The death of Hillsborough County sheriff’s Sgt. Ron Harrison was tragic. With the aid of perfect hindsight and some common sense, a case can also be made that it was preventable. An out-on-bail mutant with a rap sheet and proclivity for violence was the killer.

Among the outraged: Fox News Channel’s “The O’Reilly Factor.” It sent a news crew to ambush Circuit Judge Manuel Lopez, who had granted the bail to Sgt. Harrison’s killer.

Also among the affronted: CNN’s outrageous Nancy Grace, who hosts a stridency forum called “Headline Prime.”

Her finger-wagging take: “If I was in Tampa tonight, I’d be hiding under my bed with a shotgun.”

Even for amazing Grace, that was a new low in network hyperbole.

Rove Leaves — Finally

Re: The impending resignation of Karl Rove, presidential Svengali and wedge-politics guru.

A few points:

*Rove, Prince of Partisan Politics, never should never have been allowed around policy. The country is worse off for it.

*He was really, really good at one thing: Getting George W. Bush elected multiple times. He did whatever it took – from polarization to pander fests to dirty tricks. Donald Sagretti on steroids.

*Lee Atwater never looked so ethical.

*Enough damage for now. Time to cash in. Can you say book deal and GOP lecture circuit?

*Please, don’t anyone present him the Presidential Medal of Freedom on the way out. Even if it’s the one that George Tenet felt compelled to give back.

Bulls Ride Grothe Marketing Bandwagon

Much was made the other day when the USF football team bus – on the way from campus to Raymond James Stadium – passed a billboard of more than passing interest. The players were rubbernecking for there — near the intersection of I-275 and Fowler Avenue — was the much larger-than-life likeness of sophomore quarterback Matt Grothe. Next to it: USF’s Bullish logo. Below it: “Opening Kickoff: Saturday, Sept. 1.”

The ad makes eminently good advertising sense. In fact, there’s an identical one towering over the Southbound I-275 Westshore exit.

The 20-year-old Grothe is the USF franchise, if you will. Number 8 is that good. As a freshman, he led the Bulls in passing and rushing. He’s already a marquee player in the Big East Conference, where he was the BEC’s rookie of the year in 2006. He’s on the national media radar. Using Grothe to sell the Bulls’ brand is smart marketing.

It’s also, well, a little dicey.

College athletes, of course, don’t get paid – even the ones who are prominent in the few sports that actually generate revenue. That, however, is an argument for another day, but for the record: No, they shouldn’t be paid. The scholarship, the experience, the exposure, the contacts are the quid pro quo. If all that and Pell Grants aren’t enough, there are the pros, the semi-pros and the real, work-a-day world.

But at the same time the use of athletes’ likenesses seems a commercial reach outside the scholarship ambit and the athletic arena, per se. In the marketplace — whether it’s Peyton Manning’s Tennessee jersey when he was a student-athlete or Grothe’s Brobdingnagian Interstate image – these have tangible value, and entities besides the university are profiting. It’s not the same thing as a color photo on the sports page, a function of news gathering that is de facto marketing.

But if I’m USF and I’ve got Matt Grothe and nobody has a problem with it, I’d want him passing, running and towering too.

Gator “Pep” Talk

Former Tampa Bay Buccaneer defensive tackle and University of Florida All-American Brad Culpepper is a successful Tampa attorney these days with the Culpepper Kurland firm. He is also prominent among the Gator alumni that UF head football coach Urban Meyer reached out to when he took over the program before the 2005 season.

As a result, Culpepper and Meyer have become fast friends, and Culpepper has been invited to watch practices and games and to formally speak to the players. In fact, he talked to them three times last season.

Culpepper says he’s been impressed with Meyer’s sense of player accountability, discipline and emphasis on “chemistry.”

“Guys buy into it because he’s successful,” assesses Culpepper. There’s also a tangible aura of respect, underscores Culpepper. “No jack-assing around in the meeting room,” he notes. And he saw evidence of that first-hand last year when he spoke to the team before the LSU and FSU games.

Recently he gave the young Gators a pre-season “Pep” talk. As a former player, he has their respect; as an attorney he has their back; and as a gifted, often humor-laced communicator — who is equally at ease in front of blue bloods as black brothers — he definitely has their attention. A sampling:

Dog fighting: “Don’t do it.”

Steroids: “Don’t use ’em.”

Weapons: “Don’t have ’em.”

Weed: “Be careful.”

He’ll be back.

Hillsborough County’s Big Loss

In a previous incarnation, I was a teacher in the Hillsborough County School District — at what is now Young Magnet in East Tampa. During those tough, challenging initial years of court-ordered desegregation.

In the process, which even included a charity basketball game, I got to know James Gatlin. He was then dean of boys at Buchanan Junior High. I wish I had known him better. I envy those who did.

Gatlin, whose legacy is 45 kid-caring years in teaching and administration in Hillsborough County, died last week at age 69. He was special.

As a 6-foot-5, black administrator in those early days of integration, Gatlin was necessarily high-profile. Central Casting couldn’t have sent anyone better. As intimidating as he appeared, his most notable traits were a defusing sense of humor and an empathetic sense of fairness.

He was liked, loved and respected. And he will be missed.

Boob Tubing For Votes

Back in the day, it was anything but routine when presidential aspirant John F. Kennedy appeared on the “Tonight Show” with Jack Paar. It was a creative use of a candidate’s time to position himself in front of a non-traditional, late-night talk show audience.

Paar was appropriately deferential; it certainly wasn’t “Meet The Press” or “Face The Nation.” And JFK, of course, was hardly TV-challenged. It was a smart move.

Over the years, we’ve seen such “non-traditional” forums expand. From Bill Clinton’s safe sax act with Arsenio Hall to Barack Obama’s Kumbaya session with Oprah to Al Gore, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Rudy Giuliani, John McCain and others chatting up Jay Leno and David Letterman.

There’s also the, by now, de rigueur appearance on the “Daily Show” with comedian Jon Stewart. Especially if you have a book to hawk. I recently saw Delaware Sen. Joe Biden, the Democrats’ most experienced presidential candidate, on the Stewart faux-news show. I wish I hadn’t. Nobody was better off for Stewart’s smug fest and Biden’s quips, including the prepared ones.

The various debates, forums, television and radio talk-show outlets, plus the Oprahs, Lenos and Lettermans should be enough, thank you. If voters still don’t have a handle on who a candidate is and what a candidate thinks about issues that matter, then they may want to read something, however old school and uncool that may seem.

The point is that in these especially troubling times it’s, well, troubling to see bona fide presidential office-seekers queuing up to participate in a candidate dunk tank billed as a show-’em-your-nimble-wit-side crucible. The process doesn’t need further demeaning.

Which brings us to this fall’s YouTube debate in St. Petersburg. Looks like most, if not all, of the Republican candidates will be there for the Nov. 28 forum, which will be broadcast by CNN.

The only other question is what sort of animated character will lob up a presidential-candidate query this time?

Bolts Better For New Ownership

Of course, so much yet remains to be seen — and played out — as a result of the agreement by Palace Sports & Entertainment to sell the Tampa Bay Lightning for a reported $200 million. But on the surface, this looks like a winner. Herewith, the top five reasons to wax optimistic about Absolute Hockey Enterprises, the new (pending NHL Board of Governors’ approval) Tampa Bay Lightning owners:

1) They’ll be local. The key decision-makers, majority partners Doug MacLean, a former NHL executive and coach, and Coral Springs developer Jeff Sherrin, will move here. That’s a commitment the Bolts have never come close to experiencing before. An absentee owner, even an absentee billionaire owner, is never preferable. Plus MacLean is a bonafide “hockey guy.”

General Manager Jay Feaster will only have to amble over to a nearby suite to see the boss. No more intermediaries and no more hat-in-hand treks to Detroit for an audience with 84-year-old owner William Davidson.

MacLean, Sherrin and marketing maven Oren Koules have said all the right, impassioned things so far. Not even a hint of equivocation about keeping the team here. Chances of moving the team, underscored MacLean several times, are “zero.”

2) It’s a vote of confidence in downtown-Channel District synergy and the unrealized potential of 5.5 acres of prime real estate adjacent to the St. Pete Times Forum, which was part of the deal. To be sure, this isn’t Columbus, Ohio, where MacLean, 53, had been president and general manager of the NHL Blue Jackets franchise.

3) Koules is a big picture marketing guy. Actually, a highly successful Hollywood producer, including the gratuitously gory “Saw” series. But fresh blood, so to speak, should realize untapped marketing opportunities here. Tampa Bay may still be considered “small market” in pro sports parlance, but this is the country’s 12 largest TV market.

Hockey is artistry on skates as well as a violent collision sport. That’s hardly without appeal, to which the Bolts’ 19,877 average attendance (third in the league) attests. And Tampa Bay’s best players would already be matinee idols in the other major sports. Moreover, hockey is not a rap sheet sport. We’ll leave it at that.

Look for sponsorship enhancements. In addition, naming rights for one of the most successful indoor venues in the country is up for grabs with new ownership. The Absolute Vodka Arena?

4) These guys were competent enough to keep this purchase – through a 7-week gestation period – secret. In two countries. Presidential administrations should be this leak-proof competent.

5) MacLean, the “hockey guy,” owes us one. Big time.

Think what it was that was most glaringly missing last year from a good Lightning team that could have done much better than merely make the playoffs. It was shy a reliable goalie and a goal-scoring forward to play on Brad Richards’ line. Think disappointing Marc Denis and 30-goal scorer Freddy Modin. The Bolts gave up Modin to get Denis. From Columbus. A net minus that still smarts.

More Than DWA (“Driving While Arab”)

Here’s hoping, of course, that the South Carolina arrest of two Middle Eastern, Muslim USF students doesn’t turn out to be a Sami sequel prompting jihad-expert Steve Emerson to set up local shop and fan more flames. May it be no more than the perfect storm of foreigners being in the wrong place, at the wrong time with the wrong mien.

Indeed, we hope that the “pipe bombs” were truly a form of fireworks; a quickly shut down lap top a generically nervous gesture; proximity to Goose Creek Naval Weapons Station a coincidence; oil canisters in the car trunk a function of an auto-restoration project; and an itinerary seemingly without precise destination the modus operandi of 20-something college students on a weekend whirl of sightseeing.

Two points.

First, in this post-9/11 era, when we’re all asked to pay more attention to anything suspicious, it was well within the purview of a Berkeley County (SC) sheriff’s deputy to write more than a speeding ticket for Ahmed Abda Mohamed, an engineering graduate student at USF. He was accompanied by USF undergrad Yousef Samir Megahed.

Whatever the ultimate outcome, the officer did the right thing.

Law enforcement is on the de facto front lines of homeland security. And, yes, common sense profiling is a legitimate tool. It can be utilized without being ugly or turning our police into ethno-centric storm troopers.

Not that it takes reminding, but we are not in a civilizational war with Jews or Hindis or Buddhists or Shintos or Confucianists or Calvinists or animists or atheists or Marxists or Trotskyites or Rotarians. But jihadi Muslims with death wishes – ours and theirs.

Second, nobody owes anyone an apology if it turns out the way we want it: an unfortunate misunderstanding in the context of America under attack by extremist, suicidal Muslims.

In fact, the ultimate apology is still due the U.S.