The voice of USF Athletics, Jim Louk, will routinely put down his radio headset and pick up the pen to share his perspective on the history of USF Athletics.

Louk has been broadcasting games for 27 years and is the resident historian in the Athletics Department hallways... So this week he remembers the Early Travel Days with the Bulls

This year the Bulls will travel to great football venues at West Virginia, Florida, Louisville, Cincinnati and Miami.  The seats will be filled at every site.  The stadiums will have all the conveniences and all the bells and whistles that big time college football stadiums provide. 

It makes 1997 seem like a lot more than 13 years ago.

That inaugural season, the Bulls visited Charleston, S.C. (Citadel), Bowling Green, Ky. (Western Kentucky), Burlington, N.C. (Elon) and Lebanon, Tenn. (Cumberland). With the exception of Western Kentucky, where the facility has been almost completely re-built since '97, USF football has never returned to any of those sites. With good reason.

Football Game Programs from 1997 Road Trips (click to view entire book)
Citadel	WKU	Elon	Cumberland

Everything was new for us in 1997.  Many of us didn't know what to expect from a road trip, or a road stadium.  We were smart enough to know how lucky we were to have Tampa Stadium as a home (Raymond James came along the following year) but even with that knowledge, there were some surprises for us. 

Some recollections of that first year on the road:

Citadel - Sept. 13, 1997 - It was a blindingly hot September day in South Carolina.  The landmark 80-3 inaugural game win had been seven days earlier but this one would be much different, as the Bulls fell, 10-7.  It was an afternoon game, and our first in a non-air conditioned broadcast booth.  They had tried to dress up the press box by slapping on a new coat of blue paint, which was now flaking off the surface of everything because of the heat.  By game's end we were covered in it and since the charter flight left right after the game, the first USF football road game souvenir I ever took home was blue paint from the Citadel.  It was easy to store on the plane. I wore it. The flight attendants were kind enough to not say anything, but I'm sure they were wondering why a refugee from Blue Man Group was on the team plane that night.

Western Kentucky - Sept. 27, 1997 - Maybe the heat of Charleston should have prepared us for Bowling Green. This was an evening game, and it was at least a little cooler.  In those days, Western Kentucky only had stands on one side.  We were un-air conditioned again, but everything was pretty nice as we kicked off with some daylight left.  Then the sun started to go down.  Right in our eyes.  The press box faced west, and there were no stands, no buildings, not even a tall jackrabbit to block the setting sun.  It was a rough game for the Bulls, losing 31-3, but it wasn't too painful for Mark Robinson and I because we couldn't see almost an entire quarter of it.

Elon - Oct. 11, 1997 - Many of the people who survived this trip will tell you it was the gold standard of bad early football trips.  The Fightin' Christians, as Elon was known then (now they are the Phoenix), recently opened a new stadium.  But in '97 they played in a high school facility. Locker facilities were so sparse that the Bulls held some pre-game meetings under a tree just off the field. 

Really. 

We lost 41-7 that day.

After each road game, it takes awhile to get everyone set to leave the stadium and head to the airport.  Times always vary, but this night, we waited forever for the players and coaches to come to the buses. 

Then we found out why.

Two showers.  TWO! 

That's all there were in the locker room.  So every player had to wait his turn for the showers before we could leave for the airport.  I suggested only letting players with even numbers shower on this trip and letting the ones with odd numbers shower next trip, but nobody was with me.  One final indignity; upon finally arriving at the airport, it was learned the bathrooms on the plane had overflowed and it would take two hours for the repairs.

Cumberland - Nov. 8, 1997 - Oh, Cumberland.  It was an absolutely beautiful day.  The fall colors were out; the temperature was comfortable.  It was a great game; the Bulls won 44-0 and recorded their first shutout.   The announced attendance was 1,001, which may have included anyone who drove by the stadium as the game was being played.  The field was completely brown.  Not a speck of green on it.  The lines and yard markings were totally illegible even during pre-game warm-ups.  Listening to an old game tape there's one moment when I say that the Bulls "have a first and ten at what might be the 37 yard line".  But that's not the most memorable part. 

The seminal moment of early USF football came in this game right after a USF touchdown. The stadium had only a few bleachers; the end zone was wide open and the facility was in a residential area. Place kicker Steve Riggs kicked an extra point. It went through the uprights and out of the stadium, crossing a small roadway.  It landed in the front yard of a home, where a man sitting in a lawn chair in his front yard stood up, caught the kick, and threw it back across the road to an official.

Less than a decade after that moment, we were the No. 2 ranked team in America.

The year of 1997 yielded lots of stories and more than a few hardships, but I wouldn't trade away any of those first year experiences.  It was a great, great season.  We finished 5-6.  I would have taken 0-11.  I never stopped being amazed that year that USF was actually playing football.

As we go through the inevitable ups and downs of the 2010 season, let's not forget where we came from.  Sometimes we lose sight of the fact that the USF story is unique in college football history.  It's only our 14th season, but nobody is sitting in their front yard catching our kicks anymore.

GO BULLS!