Turns out, Michael Kelly was the last athletics director at the University of South Florida. The school is not shutting down its athletics department, though. Far from it. On Tuesday, USF announced Rob Higgins as its first CEO of Athletics.
Higgins comes to USF from (figuratively) across the street. Since 2004, he's been the executive director of the Tampa Bay Sports Commission, where he was the chief executive that brought two Super Bowls, a CFP National Championship, four NCAA Women's Final Fours, NHL All-Star Weekend, the NHL Stadium Series, WrestleMania, and numerous other NCAA postseason events to Tampa. He's now expected to attract the same attention and opportunity for Tampa Bay's leading university.
“As we embarked on this search, it became clear that this moment was different for the University of South Florida. Our next leader couldn’t just be an athletics director – we needed a CEO of USF Athletics. In this new era of college athletics, not only is the role about providing a top-tier experience for our student-athletes across all sports, it now requires a business approach to build a competitive enterprise, grow revenue, embrace innovation, lead through change and position our university — and the Tampa Bay region — on the national stage,” said USF board chairman Will Weatherford. “Rob Higgins has proven during his time with the Tampa Bay Sports Commission that he isn’t afraid to dream big. He’ll bring that same ambition to USF and we’re excited to welcome him back home to lead our next chapter.”
Higgins went to the Tampa Bay Sports Commission from USF, and will be the first alum to lead the 60-year-old athletics department.
“I never imagined that an opportunity to volunteer as a young boy at USF basketball games would take me down a path to a career of over 20 years serving at the Tampa Bay Sports Commission and now the opportunity to return to my alma mater as the first CEO of Athletics. Cliches are often rooted in some truth, but this truly is a dream come true. I could not be more honored to take on this responsibility and could not be more excited to get started,” Higgins said.
Higgins's first and most important order of business will be to deliver an on-time and on-budget football stadium. The school broke ground on the on-campus facility last November, and expects to open its new 35,000-seat home for football and lacrosse in 2027. Building (and filling) the new venue will be critical for the next era of college athletics, whatever that turns out to be. Presently, the only Power 4 schools to play home games in NFL stadiums are Miami and Pitt. Miami has won five national championships, and Pitt has played big-time football for 135 years; USF is not Miami or Pitt. In their 29th season of competition and looking for their first conference championship, USF will have to win its way to the next level, similar to how their War on I-4 rivals at UCF did.
Fortunately for Higgins, he couldn't have picked a better time to hop aboard. With two AP Top 25 wins, USF is in the rankings for the first time since 2018 and gearing up for one of the biggest games in school history on Saturday, at No. 5 Miami (3:30 p.m., The CW).
"There's no ceiling here," head coach Alex Golesh told CBS Sports. "I know that sounds like a coach answer, but I mean it genuinely. We're 28 years old, and we've got to close this giant gap, but I legitimately think this place can be a top-20 program. We've got 53,000 students, we're an AAU school, we're sitting in Tampa, Florida. It could be as big as you want it to be."
In short, Higgins's job is to make sure the floor is raised and the ceiling is never built.