Student wins $10,000 in horseshoe promotion at USF Bulls basketball event
By Greg Auman, Times Staff Writer
In Print: Friday, October 23, 2009
Philip Davis poses with Ayo Taylor-Dixon, assistant AD/marketing, left, and USF basketball coach Stan Heath. And yes, the check’s good despite the first-name misspelling.
A lucky USF fan selected for a chance to win $10,000 in a horseshoe contest during the "Bulls Frenzy" basketball event Friday night got a huge payday after a week of deliberations.
Philip Davis, a 22-year-old graduate student at USF who was chosen during last week's USF-Cincinnati football game to participate in a horseshoe toss the following night, looked to have hit a ringer from about 70 feet.
"I wasn't expecting much," said Davis, who connected on the second of two attempts. "The first throw had bounced about 5 feet in front, and I was excited about that."
After the second one, the crowd cheered and Davis hugged Rocky the Bull and got a high-five from men's coach Stan Heath, but he then was told he could not claim the prize because his foot had been over the line, and the horseshoe hadn't been close enough to the stake.
The athletic department had the promotion underwritten by an insurance company that was on hand to videotape the contest to verify the result. After initially deciding Davis hadn't met the rules of the contest, USF gave him the consolation prize of a luxury suite for 18 at a Tampa Bay Lightning home game.
But after reviewing the rules, USF decided Thursday that Davis had done what he needed to do and he received a gigantic $10,000 check at the end of afternoon basketball practice in the Sun Dome.
Davis, who graduated from Durant High near Plant City and got his undergraduate degree in economics from Florida, said he'll use some of his winnings to pay off student loans but will also set some aside for a trip to Australia.
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