Rob Higgins To Be Next CEO of USF Athletics

The lack of skates here are fine considering hockey isn’t a varsity sport as of yet.

When Rob Higgins was in middle school, he was already working for the South Florida Bulls.

The former team ball boy was a manager for the men’s basketball team under both Seth Greenberg and Bobby Paschal. He was traveling with the Bulls on weekends while still enrolled at Tampa’s Jesuit High School. And if you thought that was precocious, he was an assistant athletic director for facilities before he even finished his degree on Fowler Avenue.

And after graduation, the 813 native took over as Executive Director of Tampa Bay Sports Commission in June of 2004… at just 24 years old.

But now he moves from one dream job to another, as the USF alum moves from his position at TBSC to take over as the first CEO of USF Athletics. And there might be people that are more publicly associated with the University of South Florida, but there might not be any with longer and more deep-standing ties to the community it serves.

With Higgins the Bulls get their first USF long-time season ticket holder in the big chair. He’s also a former staffer that knows every strength and weaknesses of that slice of heaven on the Southeast quadrant of campus, a member of the Sports Club of Tampa Bay’s Hall of Fame, and a member of the city’s infamous “Jesuit High Mafia” all in one person.

And he knows just as much about the volleyball team as the football team, having been spotted plenty of times streaming a Bulls game on his phone while he’s out recruiting events for the Tampa Bay area.

And those events? Find a city in the country that’s pulled in anything close over the last 20 years: The 2007 ACC Men’s Basketball Tournament, 2008 NCAA Men’s Basketball First and Second Rounds, 2008 NCAA Women’s Final Four, 2008 and 2009 ACC Football Championships, 2009 SEC Men’s Basketball Tournament, 2009 NCAA Women’s Volleyball Championship, 2011 NCAA Men’s Basketball Second and Third Rounds, 2012 NCAA Men’s Frozen Four, 2015 NCAA Women’s Final Four, 2016 NCAA Men’s Frozen Four, 2017 College Football Playoff National Championship, 2018 NHL All-Star Weekend, the 2019 NCAA Women's Final Four, 2021 NFL Super Bowl LV, 2022 SEC Men's Basketball Tournament, 2022 U.S. Gymnastics Championships, WrestleMania 37, 2023 NCAA Men’s Frozen Four, 2023 NCAA Women’s Volleyball Championship, and the 2025 NCAA Women’s Final Four.

But the 2026 NHL Stadium Series, 2026 NCAA Men’s Basketball First and Second Rounds and the 2027 Florida-Georgia Football Game will now be the work of his successor.

Other than that, he’s had plenty of free time.

There are far more positives than negatives about living in Tampa, but it has always been a city that honors those with long-standing ties over everything. The deeper your roots are to this town, the more it unlocks for you. And those that were born with Cuban Sandwiches and Alessi’s Scachatta at every family and friends event don’t have to learn the very extensive ropes between Tampa Bay and Polk County, because it’s a core part of who they are.

In Higgins, USF has chosen someone that doesn’t need to learn the idiosyncrasies of The Big Guava. Because he’s been at scores of Gasparilla’s, he’s got a favorite order at Wright’s, Malfunction Junction traffic has taken months off his life, and he had the chateaubriand at Bern’s more times than he can count when they still served it with the cheese points.

While things are on a much more stable footing at USF than when his predecessor and friend Michael Kelly arrived nearly eight years ago, there is still plenty of work to be done. A football stadium has to be built and paid for. And that stadium pro forma assumes at some point the level of conference opponents improves.

The amount of money that can be distributed directly to athletes has now increased drastically, and getting left behind is not an option. More so than at any point in the history of USF Athletics, raising cash is the highest priority. And that is done by engaging a community across the region to make the Bulls their home team.

Rob is someone that has gotten buy-in from decision-makers at every level of sports. The success of the Tampa Bay Sports Commission hasn’t really ever been replicated anywhere else in America. He’s done that because of an ability to get people behind him with charisma, humor, and unrestrained enthusiasm for what he loves.

And if you’ve been to any of the events the TBSC has thrown, whether it’s greeting hockey players with a parade sticks on the tarmac at TIA, or getting thousands of kids to dribble outside the Women’s Final Four, no entity in the region has done more to engage a community than the TBSC over the past 20 years.

And there is no one better to engage others than one that got engaged himself while still in elementary school. It’s why the new CEO of the Bulls is the perfect person to take USF into its next era: Because USF has to become the community’s team first to reach their goals. It’s going to require region-wide buy-in from the top to the bottom of the fan pyramid.

And the Bulls, finally, have hired the perfect man to do it.

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To be noted: This is a position the staff of this website has had for a very, very long time. Below is the first VoodooFive.com flowchart calling for the hire of Rob Higgins as USF’s Athletic Director in 2014. Never wrong, just early.