South Florida’s Football Program Could Really Use A Proofreader

The University of South Florida football program appears to have some glaring deficiencies, both on and off the field. On the field, the Bulls finished the 2012 season with a 3-9 record and just one conference win — good enough for last place in the Big East. After such a disastrous season, some people involved in the program may be looking for other lines of work. However, those lines of work likely won’t include English, Journalism, or anything else involving the written word.

Members of the football team were honored during halftime of a recent USF basketball game, including punter Justin Brockhaus-Kann, a fifth year player who was awarded Special Teams Player of the Year. Unfortunately, nobody in the football department ran the plaque’s message past the English department, and two egregious spelling errors made it to the final engraving — “offensice” and “Justin Brouckhaus Kahn” (just a non-hyphenated, horribly-butchered misspelling of his name — no big deal).

When we first saw the errors, it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that it was a lame joke being played on poor Justin (Special teams? Special? Get it?). Alas, it was the real deal, and, as it turns out, his wasn’t the only plaque that failed the spelling, grammar and punctuation exam. The Lee Roy Selmon Award, given to the player who “displays the greatest courage perserverance and determination in pursuit of team goals”, went to senior tight end Evan Landi (name spelled correctly). Good job, good effort, football department.