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If you want a real athletics program, you have to be actively involved and engaged right this instant. Or else it might be over forever.
There is no passion to be found playing small; in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.
~ Nelson Mandela
The door out of Conference Purgatory has opened. And this decision will be made quickly. They’re talking about doing this as soon as 2017.
There’s nothing wrong with competing at the FCS level. Or being happy with conference championships in soccer and tennis and golf in a smaller FBS conference. Those things are fine and fun.
But if you aspire to compete at the highest levels, to have your university take those precious 12 Saturdays each Fall and have them mean something to the nation and the world, then supporters and alumni of USF across the world have got to step up and be a part of this program.
You must buy season tickets to show your support for the Bulls to become a member of the Big XII.
Immediately. Like today. NOW.
This could very well be the last shuffling of the deck before the Power Five conferences break away from the NCAA for good. A Big XII expansion is the Last Chance Hotel for BYU, Cincinnati, Houston, UConn, C. Florida, Memphis, and others. And the one thing that has been repeated to me over and over by every member of the USF administration, from the athletic director down to the managers in the equipment rooms, is that USF needs to sell more tickets and put more bodies in the seats.
The school checks every other box: the 11th-largest media market, a giant institution that’s growing, and one that fits in the top quartile academically amongst the institutions it wishes to join.
The biggest obstacle is one completely under your control: USF has to show they’re ready as a fan base. Stakeholders were promised the elite of college football, and got close enough to taste it. But then were led down a black hole of mismanagement, and saw relegation to second-tier status. It has been painful to have loved and lost as much as we did, but there’s simply no more time for pity or wallowing. The door is open, and USF fans need to step up and help the school walk through it.
And we know that a base of fans is out there. Ray Jay has been sold out before, and it can and should be sold out again. But USF needs to prove that to the Big XII with hard numbers and revenue.
So this is a call to arms to every single USF alumni, fan, student, and friend across the world. Buy season tickets for the 2016 football team. Today. And make sure every damn ticket gets used for every game.
Tickets start at $17 per game in the lower bowl. There are over 100,000 USF alumni living in Tampa Bay, and each of them are eligible for a 20% discount on tickets. The phone number is 1-800-GoBulls. Here’s the website.
Everyone that loves USF has to do their part now, or there’s a very realistic chance USF is left behind in college football forever. That the promise and potential that was initiated by Lee Roy Selmon and passed down as gospel to everyone in green and gold could fall by the wayside permanently.
And please share this post everywhere you can. And when you do, take a screenshot of your receipt for the new football tickets you just bought. Get your friends to do the same.
We either do this now, or watch what very well might be USF’s last chance at the elite of college football die in front of us.
I choose to fight. I thank those that have already. I hope more join me. Continue Reading by Clicking Here
by Collin Sherwin, The Daily Stampede
TheDailyStampede.com | @USFCollin
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