USF’s decision to induct Jim Leavitt into its Athletic Hall of Fame was always going to be polarizing, no matter which side of the issue you come down on.
Leavitt’s legion of true believers will say without hesitation that he was railroaded. They say that a USF investigation that concluded he grabbed a player by the throat, slapped him twice, and then tried to cover it up was rigged.
There is, however, another side to the issue, as articulated by Tampa Bay Times Viewpoints Editor Graham Brink.
“His love, drive, and tenacity helped turn a nascent football program into a contender, rising to No. 2 in the country, albeit briefly,” he wrote.
“Leavitt, though, took the hard-as-nails coaching persona too far. During halftime of a game in 2009, he grabbed a running back named Joel Miller by the throat and slapped him twice in the face. In that moment, he crossed the Rubicon that separates tough-guy pretense from actual violence.
I was a columnist for The Tampa Tribune when Leavitt was fired, and I supported the move.
Still do.
However, that was 15 years and five USF head coaches ago. They all built on the foundation Leavitt laid as the Bulls’ first head coach. Some of them built on it better than others, but I digress.
It is appropriate for the university to honor that.
Brink disagrees.
“No one is perfect, not even our sports heroes. Everyone makes decisions they regret and has moments they wish they could relive. But Leavitt attacked a player and then denied it,” he wrote.
“Worse, he left that player to take the blame. It’s an unflattering legacy. By inducting him into the Hall of Fame, USF signals that honor and character don’t matter.”
Nothing will change what Leavitt did, nor the shame he brought upon himself and his legacy. One day, the first paragraph of Leavitt’s obituary will note what happened.
Joel Miller died in 2017.
His family, in a story by Joey Knight of the Times, talked about the pain USF’s decision has caused them.
As USF’s founding coach, Leavitt was driven almost to the point of fanaticism. He once turned down an offer to be the head coach at Alabama. When I asked him why, his answer was revealing.
He said if he won a national title at Alabama, he would be just another guy in the school’s history who did that. But winning one at USF, he said, would be an accomplishment that no one (besides him) believed was possible.
When Leavitt is inducted into the Hall, it would be appropriate for him to issue an apology to Miller’s family, to USF, and to the other inductees for overshadowing their big day.
I doubt he will do that. He has consistently denied all the allegations.
But why do I support Leavitt’s entry into the Hall?
Because you can’t tell the story of USF football without him. Maybe another coach would have built the Bulls just as quickly as Leavitt did. However, the fact remains that he was there at the start, he built the Bulls into a national story, and, in my opinion, that deserves recognition.