* Tampa’s Plant High is ranked 10th in USA Today’s preseason high school football rankings. But Plant’s not the highest-ranked school in this region; Manatee High comes in at number three. (Number one is Miami Central.) Plant and its lofty ranking will be tested early. After opening with Jesuit and Hillsborough, the Panthers travel to the New Orleans Superdome to play River Ridge, La.’s John Curtis Christian High School, ranked number seven by USA Today.
* Disappointing attendance is nothing new at Tampa Bay Rays games, even as the team continues to stay competitive among peers with more resources. But nobody said anything about the crowds that showed up last week for the Rays’ three-game series in Oakland against the red-hot A’s. The games drew 12,000, 15,000 and 18,000, respectively. Not coincidentally, the A’s are the other team pursuing a venue change.
*The University of Florida’s athletic budget is about $100 million. And as we know, it gets results. The Gators are among the elite programs in the country–with three national championships (women’s tennis, men’s indoor track and field, men’s outdoor track and field) this past year. A chunk of that budget goes into incentive bonuses for coaches. They ranged from $75,000 for men’s basketball (making the Elite Eight) and $56,000 for the women’s tennis championship to $33,000 for baseball (7th at the College World Series) and $11,000 for men’s tennis (tied for 9th).
Coaches also receive a $4,000 bonus in any year their teams achieve an 85 percent graduation rate. Anyone else think that’s relatively chump change for rewarding those few whose standards truly reflect the “student-athlete” model that is an oxymoron at many schools in many sports?