With former athletic director Paul Griffin being inducted into the USF Athletics Hall of Fame on Thursday night, we present this story originally published in The Silver Stampede: 25th Anniversary of South Florida Football.
Griffin served as Director of Athletics for 15 years (1986-2002), leading USF through a transformational period and rapid ascent that saw the addition of the women's soccer, fast pitch softball and football programs, elevation from the Sun Belt Conference to the Metro Conference to Conference USA and the capturing of 63 conference titles. Griffin inherited a USF athletic program that was $650,000 in debt and within two years, the debt was gone and a new era of fiscal solvency had begun. Griffin was instrumental in launching South Florida's football program at the NCAA Division I-AA level and later move to I-A just four seasons later. One of his first hires was men's basketball coach Bobby Paschal, an eventual USF Athletic Hall of Fame inductee. In 1993 Griffin hired local legend and eventual USF Hall of Famer Lee Roy Selmon as USF's associate athletic director and went on to build a $5 million endowment and help sell 17,000 season tickets for the inaugural football season. Griffin's other notable hires include softball coach Ken Eriksen, women's basketball coach Jose Fernandez and then 27-year-old Michael Kelly, who would eventually become USF Vice President of Athletics in 2018.
When Paul Griffin became USF's athletic director in 1986, the athletic department was $650,000 in debt. Football wasn't exactly on the radar — yet.
"We had other immediate priorities and getting them solved was the first task,'' said Griffin, who was at USF until 2001 before finishing his career at Georgia Tech. "But football was on the radar and you knew it eventually had to be considered and addressed. I certainly had a sense of how vital football could be for not only the future of our athletic department, but the entire university.''
As usual, Griffin had a plan.
There was Lee Roy Selmon, the local legend and fundraising catalyst. There was Jim Leavitt, the first coach who built something out of nothing. There were dozens of players, who bought into the program's potential and set the foundation.
But when writing the history of USF football, Paul Griffin's name should be included in the first chapter. It wouldn't be a stretch to call him the program's Founding Father.
"Paul was a very thoughtful, reasoned and informed leader for what we were attempting to do,'' said Frank Borkowski, USF's president when the feasibility of football was first considered.
"This was a very big undertaking and Paul was there every step of the way,'' said Betty Castor, who followed Borkowski as USF's president in 1993. "The things he helped to accomplish and implement are still influencing the direction of the athletic program and USF as a whole.''
Upon first inspection, the stone-faced Griffin could come across as gruff and aloof. Griffin's father, a former New York City firefighter, once described him as "the Silent Sam of my family. He listens to me, then does what he wants.''
In reality, Griffin was a listener and a thinker. He also sought to educate himself in new concepts, such as athletic marketing and the impact of regional sports television networks, which were becoming in vogue when he arrived at USF.
He was also a planner. As the lacrosse coach at Roanoke College, Griffin's team won the NCAA Division II national championship on a trick play that had been practiced all season, but never used. His players still marvel at Griffin's poker-faced approach.
Griffin said he was "never fond of maintaining.'' New challenges fueled his fire. The careful nurturing of USF football — from the first feasibility committee meeting to the establishment of a $5-million endowment to the program's approval by the State Board of Regents — was easily the largest undertaking of his career.
He made sure to have some fun along the way. When initial season-ticket plans were developed, USF marketing officials set 10,000 as a first-year goal, although that was the top level for a Division I-AA program. "If we get to 10,000, I'll dance down Dale Mabry Highway,'' Griffin said.
About a week before USF's first game, with season-ticket sales hovering near 17,000, there was Griffin, joined by two USF colleagues, on Tampa's Dale Mabry Highway during weekday rush hour. They were dancing. Given all that Griffin had helped to orchestrate, the celebration seemed appropriate.
– Go Bulls –
