University of South Florida (in Tampa) has their homecoming football game this weekend, and the school just dropped $5,600 in fees (from students) on purple and gold shirts.
Problem? Well, their homecoming opponent, Eastern Carolina University, their colors are purple and gold. So now the students are wearing the opposing team’s colors bought with their own funds.
From the USF Oracle:
Purchased with $5,600 from student Activity and Service (A&S) fees, 1,200 distributed shirts on campus share the same purple color with the East Carolina Pirates — the Bulls’ Homecoming opponent.
“We really want to be in green,” Center for Student Involvement Director Monica Miranda said. “The opposing team’s color is purple, so we don’t want to be in purple.”
The shirt’s primary color is grape with white letters advertising the list of the week’s events on the back and the Homecoming Superbull XVIII logo on the front.About 200 of the purple shirts were passed out to promote Homecoming week. By Friday, Miranda said someone brought up the oversight to the Campus Traditions Board.
“It’s a student committee,” she said. “They didn’t realize purple was the color of the opposing school.”Though purple is an approved accent color for the university, no more purple shirts will be distributed to students this week.
Students may still get the chance, however, to grab a free shirt this week as Miranda said an order for 1,000 green shirts was received Tuesday. The shipment of the green shirts costs about $4,200, funded by the A&S fee.Students currently pay a $7 flat A&S fee per semester for a fund that Student Government allocates. This year, SG allocated $412,134 to the Homecoming steering committee. Within the Homecoming budget, $30,000 was budgeted for marketing, of which $11,626 paid for promotional items such as shirts, cups and sunglasses.
Is this the most Florida story to ever Florida? Probably not. Is it so embarrassing to the point of hurting recruiting and admissions? I’d hope so.
Nobody involved at any point in this process knew that ECU’s colors were purple and gold? Me, I just learned a few months ago where ECU was geographically, but I’ve known for years what their colors are. The ECU football team gets plenty of coverage on TV, and this is just hilariously unacceptable.
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