TAMPA, Fla. — The USF athletic department coaches took their show on the road Thursday, bringing the "Bulls Coaches Tour" to downtown Tampa for a meet-and-greet with some of the program's biggest fans.
USF CEO of Athletics Rob Higgins said the timing of the new hires couldn't be better.
"It's all gas, no brakes because the opportunity that we have at hand at this very moment is something that's really special and something that we can't afford to miss on right now," Higgins said.
New men's head basketball coach Chris Mack and women's head basketball coach Kristy Curry both arrived with work already underway.
"It was a little daunting a few weeks ago when we had zero players on the roster," Mack joked after the event. "But, we've worked extremely hard to put together a roster that we feel great about."
"Love working. Love working hard and working smart and combining those two things together," Curry added. "It's a brand new challenge, and we're excited for the opportunity."
While the event was billed as a coaches tour, wide receiver Mudia Reuben hosted several panel discussions that emerged as one of its standout figures. Reuben transferred to USF after graduating from Stanford and chose to stay with the program when new head football coach Brian Hartline was hired this offseason.
Reuben is pursuing a master's degree in biomedical engineering, and off the field, he has used his NIL platform to launch the "Nigeria Water Project" — an initiative aimed at improving access to clean water in his parents' home country.
"My parents would tell me various stories about waking up and going to a farm and scrapping crops, or just waking up and working. Knocking tree sap, collecting water, all that," Reuben explained. "These water sources, half the time, not even being clean. So I started thinking 'What's the bare minimum I can do?' Began with my first two in my parents hometown villages where they were born. Now, I've expanded across six different boreholes, and six different villages and school locations in Nigeria. For more information, head to NigeriaWaterProject.org.
Hartline said players like Reuben set a standard that extends well beyond the football field.
"There's a lot of guys that want to do good. They may not know what good looks like. To have more and more of those guys be able to follow the path of a guy like Mudia is really important," Hartline said. "We're trying build more of those guys off the field and on the field."
Higgins added that the new, on-campus football stadium is on schedule to open for the 2027 season.
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