USF Athletics

Bulls Happy to Serve Community During Women's Final Four Week

April 09, 2019

By TOM ZEBOLD
USF Senior Writer
 
TAMPA, APRIL 9, 2019 – Community service was the mission last week for the Bulls leading into National Student-Athlete Day on Saturday, April 6. USF student-athletes, staff and coaches succeeded in touching lives on campus and throughout Tampa during Women's Final Four festivities.
 
USF's action-packed week of events ramped up on Wednesday, April 3 with nearly 150 kids from six Boys & Girls Clubs in the Bay area getting to experience what it's like to be a student-athlete during "A Day in Green and Gold."
 
Florida Blue sponsored USF's fourth edition of the event, which was basketball themed to align with the Women's Final Four, and took place at three locations within the Bulls' athletic district. After running through a tunnel of high-fiving Bulls, kids got to go through student-athletes' entire routine, which included strength and conditioning tutorials and an inside look at sports medicine at the Muma Center.
 
Kids also had a chance to start thinking about possible future careers while choosing majors and learning about college academics inside the media room at the Yuengling Center. Just days before the Women's Final Four, children got into basketball mode by playing games on three courts at The Corral. USF women's basketball student-athletes had a blast coaching them up.
 
On the same afternoon, USF Athletics was well represented at the Dream Court Project ribbon-cutting ceremony at Dowdell Middle School. The NCAA and Nancy Lieberman Charities teamed up with the Tampa Bay Local Organizing Committee, the Hillsborough County School District and Boys & Girls Clubs of Tampa Bay to renovate an outdoor playing court at the location. USF Vice President of Athletics Michael Kelly was joined by head coach Jose Fernandez's USF women's basketball coaching staff for the second-ever Dream Court Project reveal in Tampa. The first local recipient was the Freddie Solomon Boys & Girls Club during the 2015 Women's Final Four.
 
USF Athletics also had a big hand in helping the Women's Final Four Bounce event become a big hit over the weekend. Nearly 30 student-athletes along with USF Athletics staff members and spirit squads took part in the NCAA Bounce Blow-Up Party on Friday, April 5. Outside the Lee Roy Selmon Athletics Center, the group spent the morning inflating more than 2,000 basketballs that were used by local kids who dribbled their way along the Tampa Riverwalk and into Tourney Town during the Women's Final Four Bounce parade on Sunday, April 7.

 

Shoutout to @USFAthletics for helping us inflate over 2,000 basketballs for Bounce!

More info on Bounce: https://t.co/2cSkHaBEja#WFinalFour pic.twitter.com/j2koDDoKI1

— NCAA WBB (@ncaawbb) April 5, 2019

Between "A Day in Green and Gold" and the NCAA Bounce Blow-up Party, more than 80 USF student-athletes logged in a total of 155 community service hours.

In addition to those efforts, head coach Bob Butehorn's USF men's soccer team was happy to work on arts and crafts and play games with kids at the Children's Cancer Center on Saturday during National Student-Athlete Day. Numerous USF Athletics staff members also did their part during an important time for the program by volunteering throughout Women's Final Four week to help make it a truly memorable experience in Tampa yet again.
 
 
About USF Athletics
USF Athletics sponsors 19 varsity men's and women's teams that compete in 11 different sports, 18 at the NCAA Division I level in the American Athletic Conference. The Bulls' athletic program began in 1965 and is in its 53^rd season in 2018-19. Nearly 500 student-athletes train and compete in the athletic district located on the east end of the campus in Tampa, Fla. The Bulls have claimed 16 American Athletic Conference team titles since joining the conference in 2013, including at least three in each of the last three seasons, and own 113 conference championships overall. Nine USF programs reached national post-season competition in the 2017-18 season and six were ranked in the Top 25 nationally. The Bulls posted a combined annual grade-point average over 3.0 for the third straight year in 2017-18 and have posted a program record seven straight semesters with a combined GPA over 3.0. USF has seen more than 180 student-athletes earn their degree in the last two years.