I like Steve Spurrier, I really do. I feel like we should set the record straight on that to start. There has never been and probably never will be another person like him in college football as a player or coach. He is truly one of a kind and a legend all to his own.
Spurrier was the first interview I ever did as a sports reporter. It was the 2011 SEC Media Days, I was there as an intern and had no idea what I was doing. Spurrier walked through the hall so I asked him if I could interview him. In his special Spurrier voice he said “Sure let’s go.”
His handler didn’t appreciate it but I did. I was so nervous and shaking. I could barely get my words out and as you can see in the video below, obviously didn’t straighten my hair enough that morning.
It was blatantly obvious that I was green but he treated me like a veteran and took the time to give me a proper interview.
I’ll always be grateful for the generosity and respect he showed me for those 2 minutes and 8 seconds.
The Spurrier love is never stronger than it is in Gainesville though. His name is whispered through these parts in hushed and reverent tones and understandably so.
Now on the heels of Jeremy Foley asking head coach Will Muschamp to step down, Spurrier’s name has been linked with words like “return, come back and save us”.
It started off as nothing more than wishful thinking. Then South Carolina started struggling. Gator fans saw an opportunity for Spurrier to leave a place where “they just didn’t deserve him” and return to Gainesville to coach the Gators back to prominence before retiring. If he can simultaneously lead Florida back to the glory days it experienced under him in the 90’s then even better.
This is the worst possible idea.
I’m sure you just rolled your eyes.
Trust me this is a horrible idea. Absolutely nothing good can come of it.
I’M (NOT) MOVING ON
There are actually two reasons as to why this shouldn’t happen. Before we break that down though, let’s start with some background.
Every single coach that has ever walked onto Florida Field is compared to Steve Spurrier. With the search on for a new coach, his resume will be matched up against the Head Ball Coach’s.
This is a natural comparison by many, but for fans it’s not so much a touchstone as a measuring stick that no one will ever live up to.
How can you expect them to? He came in as a player and won a Heisman with an aw-shucks attitude and on point kicking game. He swaggered in as a coach before it was cool, won a national championship and slung it around without apology while finishing 122-27-1.
He expressed anger through visor flips and snarky comments that somehow made us love him even more and he did things differently than any other coach ever has or will.
That last part is key.
Different than any other coach ever has or will.
Will Muschamp has begun his graceful exit, so criticizing or defending him is no longer necessary. This article is not meant to do either. He does serve as a great example to make my point though so we will use him as a metaphor.
I have the opportunity to come in contact with a lot of Gator boosters and they’re a joy to be around (that’s not sarcastic, I really enjoy their company) and have decade’s worth of Gator stories to tell.
Every conversation circles back though to how Muschamp isn’t (wasn’t) good for Florida and then how every other coach is a horrible idea and how “Jeremy just needs to hire someone that coaches like Spurrier”. And really it’s the majority of fans and more than just the Boosters, but they are the most vocal.
BOOSTER’S RUMBLINGS
ARGUMENT-Muschamp is a Georgia graduate so he has no loyalty to Florida. And we were never nothing more than a stepping stone to Meyer. Spurrier is a Florida boy through and through.
REBUTAL– Ok so honestly the only current head coach I can think of that is currently at their alma mater is Kliff Kingsbury. I’m sure there are more and feel free to let me know but who has time to Google all of that. And Kliff, if we’re being honest, ain’t doing to hot at Texas Tech. He looks hot doing it for sure, but the team is still struggling. Spurrier and Bear Bryant both returned when “mama called” and gave their alma maters glory days that have yet to be matched. But in doing so they consequently gave fans a fictional view of what should qualify as a head coach.
ARGUMENT-Muschamp and Saban and all these other coaches get way to mad. Screaming at players looks bad and doesn’t help.
REBUTAL-I’m not a football player so I can’t act like I know their line of thinking. But I do know player after player from a dozen different schools, have stood in front of me and said, off the record, how much they love their coach. 9 times out of 10 these coaches are yellers. But these guys are competitors. When you’re that wired to compete nothing gets your blood pumping more than shutting someone up, whether it be the opposition or you coach who says you can’t block. How do you shut them up? Prove them wrong. These coaches weren’t born yesterday. They know how to effectively use this tactic. Then there’s when he’s yelling FOR them. The only thing that will make someone work as hard as pride does is loyalty. Knowing that someone will stand on your behalf. This often means yelling at the officials since they have such an obvious albeit questionable amount of influence over the game, Plus they’re like the Buckingham Palace guards of football. Yell all you want, and they can’t do anything back; except maybe take into account what you’re saying. So only positive can come out of this act.
People seem to forget Spurrier did get mad, it just came out in snarky comments that would cut you so quickly that you didn’t realize it until he walked away. Then you’d look down to see a pool of blood. It’s an art form really and deserves respect. It’s just not something many people can do so yelling is a good fall back.
ARGUMENT-Spurrier made football fun.
REBUTAL-Call me crazy, but I think defense is fun. And while I know Spurrier’s whole coaching philosophy actually has the word fun literally in the title, it’s important to note that he crafted this while most of the rest of this league was building a reputation as a defensive league. So while the “Fun-and-Gun” is a hoot and a holler, it is not the only type of football. There’s also this thing called running the ball and when it works, it’s glorious. Mostly because it depends on the talents of offensive lineman and we should always highlight the talents of offensive lineman as they are the best people on earth.
ARGUMENT-I just don’t like him [insert any name that isn’t Spurrier] for Florida.
REBUTAL-I don’t like Kristen Stewart yet Hollywood insist I still accept her as a reality of life. Here at Florida the only person that could feasibly come in on a positive note, at least at the current Spurrierism level that Florida fans sustain themselves at is Tim Tebow or Danny Weurffel. This is in large part thanks to the fact that they have statues next to Steve Spurrier’s.
THE MEAT OF THE MATTER Ok so those four points were my introduction. We just needed to get on the same page and understand that every coach that has come through Florida since Spurrier left has been unfairly compared to him. With that, let’s jump into the two quick points as to why he shouldn’t come back for a second stint as a Gator.
HE WINS
Let’s say Spurrier comes back and does what everyone obviously expects him to do and wins. He takes the team to Atlanta and then maybe pulls one more year away from retirement to get to the playoffs in the second year. Then I imagine the scene going something like Florida Field being renamed to Spurrier Field (this is going to happen anyways at some point, I’d bet on it). The speed limits on campus pull an Ole Miss and are lowered to 11. An ordinance gets passed requiring some form of praise accompany any mention of his name a la Princess Diaries. The Heisman statue is removed from it’s pedestal only to be placed atop a newly constructed Mount Olympus replica since that is the only proper place for it to rest.
But that will all be secondary to the more lasting reaction that this will have. If fans still compare coaches to Spurrier this much now, this would happen ten fold if Spurrier came back and won again.
It’s taken 12 years of learning to live without Spurrier just to get to this level. Two years with him or even one year or God forbid three or more would multiply this innate obsession to the point of possibly no return. Not to mention now leeway whatsoever for any new coach. And who wants that? It’s not healthy for anyone involved.
It’s like in Hope Floats, when Sandra Bullock and her daughter, played by a young but extremely talented Mae Whitman, have settled into their new life in Texas; it’s taken a while but they’ve gotten used to life without husband/daddy. Obviously the little girl still misses him and loves him and wants to be with him again but she’s figuring out how to live without him. Then he shows up and ignites all these feelings again and now she’s back to square one. Shoot, she actually flew right past square one straight into a deep pit of despair.
So if Spurrier came back and got everyone excited again, then left, fans (and new coaches knowing what they’d step in to) would all be Mae Whitman crying at the end of the driveway. Listen to that. Do you want that to be you?
http://videos.nymag.com/video/Mae-Whitman-Crying-in-Hope-Floa/player?layout=&title_height=24
HE LOSES
The Sunday following Auburn’s loss to TAMU, I called my Grandma in Alabama to make sure she was still able to function in society. This was a legitimate concern. Luckily she was doing ok but didn’t want to talk about it. What she did want to talk about however was Steve Spurrier. She had watched enough South Carolina this year and had been saving up for me to call her.
“He’s getting older Kassidy and when you get that old, no matter how much you want it to, your mind just doesn’t work the same. I’m 71 and can’t recall half of what I used to so I know he’s probably just dialing it in at this point. You get to tired to go to bed at night worrying about other things. You just want to sleep.”
She had a point. There has to come a point where it’s just too much. That’s not a knock on Steve Spurrier and his skills at all. It’s a statement on the cruelty that can be time.
Looking back on South Carolina’s loss to Auburn, we see Spurrier still has all the razzle dazzle in his play calling abilities. That was a game played on the sidelines and the ole ball coach reminded everyone that he can draw them up better than anyone every day of the week and twice on Sundays (well Saturday’s in this case).
But he seems to have lost the team.
Spurrier himself admitted after his recent loss to Tennessee, dropping the season record to 4-5 at the time, “I’m not used to this and I don’t want to get used to it.”
No one wants to get used to losing and it really speaks to Spurrier’s legacy that he’s not used to it.
At the time of this publication, he’s 82-44 at South Carolina and 224-84-2 overall in his coaching career.
Yet at the same time, a few hard knocks teach a man how to get back up.
Spurrier has always been able to win with his game plan. He never had to be the huge rah-rah cheerleader. He can get his guys fired up for sure. But from our admittedly limited observations he’s never had to get a team ready to charge hell with a water pistol. His genius has been enough to win, and now that it’s not he finds himself on the sidelines with a self disparaging grimace and arms crossed in defiance of the circumstances.
Now…what if that happened at Florida? What if he came back, and wasn’t able to win; at least not in the grand way that fans would automatically assume he would.
Is the risk worth the reward, or vice versa?
If he comes back to Florida and loses, now this golden boy has lost some of his shine and fans have a tarnished view of their most beloved hero.
LET’S WRAP THIS THING UP
Urban Meyer won two national championships and it ended up giving him heart problems. He willingly left the beautiful oasis that is the Sunshine State and moved to Ohio. OHIO! Sure there was that year in between with ESPN, but when it comes down to it, that’s what happened. People leave Ohio in droves each year. Know where they go? Florida. He went the other way! I did actually Google top attractions in Ohio. We have the equivalent of/better than in a two-hour radius of Gainesville. And that’s not even opinion. I’m pretty sure it’s a scientific fact that Disney World is better than Cedar Point in Sandusky. No offense to any Ohioans reading this. You know it’s true.
While Meyer left on his own accord, we get the sense that Muschamp would’ve stayed and grinded it out for as long as fans would let him; unfortunately for him, that grace was used up after losing to South Carolina.
It could’ve been any team that week and the result would’ve been the same, but the fact that it was South Carolina is almost fitting. Steve Spurrier set expectations that Muschamp was unable to live up to, thus placing him on the hot seat. And then Spurrier beat him, placing the final nail in his coffin.
Spurrier and his legacy will remain synonymous with the Florida program for probably all time. Even if he retires a Gamecock, he’ll always be a Gator.
Hold onto that sweet knowledge, and then with it mind; move forward to make some new memories.
Kassidy (great name by the way), nice article, but I need to add that Mike Gundy the current head coach at Oklahoma State and a name being bantered around for the Florida job in some circles, played QB for the Cowboys back in the day. So there are at least two coaches currently at their alma mater.
Great article. I will say I haven’t noticed any groundswell to bring back the Ol’ Ball Coach which is very likely a good thing. As Ms. Hill so eloquently states sometimes you can’t go home and sometimes you have to force yourself to move on and concentrate on the future instead of dwelling on the past. Nice job. I guess Ms. Hill has a plan…. :-)
Good article. Of course it falls on deaf ears. It doesn ‘t even do any good to point out USCe’s mediocre record this year because you will then hear “he beat Muschamp”. As if that is relevant, since WM is on the way out the door.
The concept that if they hate you it is because you beat them is another mantra of UF fans who (rightly) adore Spurrier because he won. Well, truth be told, UF is held low regard by a large segment of the country because Spurrier was a terrible winner; the legacy lingers. I will say that he is a gracious loser. He had a lot of opportunity to hone that attribute with the Washington “No Names”, who were my favorite NFL team back when they did have a name. Fans ignore that he also got to practice during many of his years at USC as well. By any measure he has been pretty successful there, but frequently came up short of expectations.
Since I am pushing my 80th year, I can say without being accused of ageism, that Spurrier is just too old to consider. He may stay on the job for a couple of more years, then UF would be starting over, and looking for its 5th HC in a span of less than 20 years.
Thanks for what you did SOS. It was fun, despite the occasional cringes from someone who is not a great devotee of snarkiness. I think you know, even if the wild eyed faithful do not, that it is not meant to be.
Spurrier is not even an option. If he came, he would face the same thing Bobby Bowden did in his final years. One reason Meyer was so successful was using Bowden’s age against him. It’s great to be a legendary coach, but when you are on the other side of 70 it’s a handicap. The recruits can’t be confident you’ll be around much longer. I hope the writer did not actually think Spurrier was an option now, he never was.
Snowprint, you didn’t even read the article, you just posted your thought on the title. If you had actually read the article, you would have understood the writer was giving you several reasons why Spurrier is not an option, and shouldn’t be considered anyway. Besides if he was a candidate you wouldn’t be privy to that information. I would be shocked if you commented on a single article on this site and had anything positive to contribute in your comments.
DpGator you know as well as I do snow flake never reads the article he just always graces us with his very popular optimistic outlook on every single topic.
OPGATOR I guess you are not good at reading comprehension. The point, that went way over your head, was that there was no need for the writer to go into this long tome about why Spurrier is not a viable candidate. He never was a candidate for the current opening and writing about why he is not a good candidate is a waste of time. Nobody ever thought of him returning to Florida now, it was a silly proposition because he’s too old now. It’s pretty amazing how you were so ready to pounce on something, and instead showed your limited capacity to comprehend.
Hi Snowprint, it’s the writer here. I’d thank you for your time reading the article and interest in it but it’s obvious you were forced to do so as you wouldn’t possibly willingly “waste your time” on such a long article. I wouldn’t want to waste my time either on something that wasn’t viable or pertinent. I especially wouldn’t want to waste my time writing it. Since I spent about 4 days writing it (a day of that was re-writing after Muschamp was fired) then that would be a lot of wasted time on something that was pointless; and regardless of what my brother says, I’m not completely stupid. For me to spend that amount of time on such a long form article, I can promise you I had reason to. The first few times I heard fans mention this possibility it was just as a joke and/or dream. After I lost count of the amount of times I’d heard it though, and after the tone had changed to seriousness, I knew I had enough contradicting views to present my own case. And as my article mentions, I spend a lot of time around Gator Boosters, who control the purse strings which in turn controls at least some aspect of Jeremy Foley’s decision making. And they want Spurrier back.
More than the point about Spurrier though was the underlying point of “please move on. Stop relating everything to Spurrier and just accept your coaches”. I felt like that point was pretty evident, but I guess it could be missed if you were just trudging through reading it.
I don’t like to get into arguments on comments, so I hope you don’t see this as an invitation to one. But you did call into question my judgement and I have just enough self respect to defend that.
I’m sorry I offended your sensibilities. But Spurrier was never a viable candidate, regardless of whether some other old white men, i.e. boosters, thought different. Anyone pushing seventy years old is not going to be considered for UF. UF is not Kansas State, where a septuagenarian is a viable option because they don’t have many options because, well, it’s Kansas State. If you felt the need to nip it in the bud, fine, but I don’t feel that it was necessary because it was a ludicrous proposition in the first place.