Steve Spurrier probably doesn't remember talking to me, but I remember interviewing him vividly. In 1988, at 26 years old, I left Tuscaloosa, Alabama, where I was a sports reporter for a local radio station and a writer for Bama Magazine, to take a job writing sports for a publication titled Carolina Blue. It was kind of a suck up publication for University of North Carolina football, basketball and the other sports, but it was owned by then media powerhouse Jefferson-Pilot out of Charlotte, so it was a pretty good gig. I wrote 8-10 feature stories a week along with game stories on football and basketball games. It was pretty intense work. I was getting in at 7:15 in the morning and working till whenever I got done. Sometimes it was 5:30 PM and I got in some basketball pickup games after that. Other times it was 7:30 or 8 PM, and sometimes midnight. My editor's name was John Kilgo, and his nickname was "Killer." It was appropriate. He was a killer on young writers. There were three of us, two guys from East Carolina, and me, and we wrote away and got lambasted on a weekly basis on our reporting and our writing. Misspelled names would really get you taken to the woodshed verbally. But it was unbelievably great experience. My first story that I wrote for the publication was on North Carolina football center Jeff Garnica. He was an All-ACC player and selected by the AP as an All-American in '88. He was also very bright. I wanted to do a really good job with the piece after interviewing him for an hour because he was a great guy and I just wanted to start off with a bang. I started writing at 4 PM that afternoon and didn't get done until midnight. These stories were long, somewhere around 2,000 words, which are lengthy, but it's a story I could write now in an hour, look it over, and have it out in an hour and 15 minutes. But I was new to it.
Anyway, there were some really fun interviews. Coach Pat Dye at Auburn, Coach K at Duke, Lute Olsen at Arizona, of course Mack Brown, who had just started at Carolina and really did a heckuva job there before getting the Texas job in 2000. He took Carolina to multiple bowl games in the 90's, but in 1988, he was really rebuilding that program and didn't win a game his first year. I got to talk to Dean Smith all the time which was pretty awesome. I actually worked in the Smith Center, which was better known as the Dean Dome then and today. It was really an incredible experience as far as the coaches I got to talk to. Steve Spurrier was in his early 40's and had taken the Duke job in 1987. I called his office to do a preview of the upcoming 1989 Duke-Carolina game on a Tuesday about 5:30 PM Eastern Time. The next morning I got in the office at 7:15 and I had a message on the answering machine. "David, this is Steve Spurrier, hope you're doing great! Would love to talk to you about our upcoming game with the Heels. Give me a call when you get a chance." He talked to me like I was a good friend of his and he had no idea who I was. He knew he was going to beat Carolina most likely, but more than that, he LOVED the media. It was really refreshing to a coach who really wanted to talk to you. A lot of the great ones do like talking to the media. I had a great interview with Ball Coach, he was awesome. He, of course, beat Carolina that year. In 1989, he beat Danny Ford and Clemson, which was a perennial top 10 team and almost unbeatable team in the ACC, and Ford, a Bear Bryant disciple, won the national championship at Clemson in 1980. He was very similar to Coach Dye in that he played hard-nosed, physical football with an excellent running game and defense, and a solid passing game. His teams would just wear opponents out with their toughness and tenacity, much like Coach Saban's do today and Coach Jim Harbaugh's Michigan teams are starting to do. But Spurrier beat him in 1989 in a major upset and Duke went on to tie for the ACC title and play in the All-American Bowl in B'ham that year. That's when Florida came calling to get their former Heisman Trophy winner back home to Gainesville and revive a struggling program. It was 1990 and I had taken a job at a daily newspaper, The Durham Morning-Herald, and was having a blast covering high school and college football and basketball for the paper. My sports editor, Ron Morris, and I got tips that Ball Coach was talking to Florida, so we found out when his plane was getting back to the Raleigh-Durham airport from Gainesville. We greeted him when he got back that night trying to get the scoop. He said to Ron, "Hey Mo-Mo," and kept calling him "Mo Mo." It was hysterical. He was so much fun, but had a way of telling you a lot and making it an awesome interview without telling you exactly what he was going to do. We finally got the word that Ball Coach was going to Florida. It was the right move for him. He was ready to go to the SEC, where he won a Heisman Trophy, and play in the big leagues and attempt to win SEC titles and national titles.
Well he did pretty well in Gainesville I'd say. Six SEC titles and one national championship in 1996. He had a dominant program. In 2000, he wanted to try something else; he wanted to try the NFL. It didn't work out with the Washington Redskins. Sometimes great college coaches can't make the transition to the NFL because they are used to telling their players what to do and the players will follow orders. The great college coaches have total control. People like Spurrier and Coach Saban probably didn't like the fact that some of the NFL players with the bigger salaries wouldn't listen to them. It had to be frustrating for Spurrier and S. The same happened in basketball with Calipari and Pitino. Both incredible college coaches who couldn't make the transition to the NBA because their disciplined styles didn't work with some of the players, who wanted to run the show. It's a real fine line in the NFL and the NBA. You've got to be able to mix discipline with being a players' coach to an extent. And while Spurrier's and Saban's players in college have liked them and respected them for the most part, their hard nose, particularly Saban's, approach for some reason didn't connect with guys who were more into their paychecks than being great football players. But Spurrier and S's styles have been phenomenal in college.
Ball Coach took the job at South Carolina in 2005 and had three consecutive 10 win seasons from 2010-12 winning 11 games in 2012. I remember the 2013 Outback Bowl victory for South Carolina, a 31-28 victory over Michigan, because Jadeveon Clowney had one of the most massive hits on a Michigan running back that I'd ever seen. It was a tremendous football play. The Michigan player was really shaken up, but it was legal. I guess it'd be legal today. Not sure, but it was just an awesome football play. Fortunately, the Michigan player didn't suffer a serious head injury, and it was a totally legal hit. But Ball Coach was bringing in Mr. Football after Mr Football in South Carolina with the great Marcus Lattimore, like Clowney, another stud before he suffered those tough knee injuries. But Lattimore was an awesome running back for South Carolina in the two years he played and could very well have won the Heisman Trophy and been a first round pick in the NFL, maybe the top player selected, if he hadn't sustained those devastating knee injuries. Clowney was the first player selected in the 2014 draft by the Houston Texans and is battling through some injuries, but could dominate if he puts his mind to it. Alshon Jeffery was another Mr. Football, who pretty much beat Alabama singlehandedly in 2010. Jeffery is now a star wide receiver with the Chicago Bears in the National Football League though he's banged up a little now. But he was a great one at South Carolina, too.
Ball Coach had run into some tough times these last two years, and he was just tired of the losing and just tired period. It's a tough predicament for South Carolina the rest of this season. Offensive line coach Shawn Elliott will take over. But Ball Coach deserved the right to decide when he was done. He's 70 years old, an age when men aren't having to work as hard and should enjoy life some more, so he's definitely earned the right to say when he's done. He didn't think he could turn it around this year and the future wasn't as promising as he'd hoped, recruiting was going OK but not great, so he was ready to call it a career. He has a lifetime membership at Augusta National, which he will certainly take advantage of. He loves to play golf and is a good golfer. He has a house in Florida which he will use a lot. He's got all the financial resources he needs, and he really loves his wife, his children and his grandchildren. He deserves a good final chapter in his life. With as good a shape as he's in, that could be another 20 to 25 years. He's 70 going on 50. He loves life.
Would he ever take another job? I highly doubt it. USC, the other USC, Southern Cal, will have an opening, but I think the Ball Coach likes the South, wants to be close to his family and really likes the membership at Augusta and playing golf, so he's ready to focus on that. He's been a scratch golfer and is still a very good player.
I have no idea whom South Carolina will hire. No clue. I guess Kirby Smart's name might come up. Jeremy Pruitt. Chad Morris. Guys like that. Should be interesting how that develops.
But Coach Spurrier has a lot of livin to do as the song goes. I hope he really enjoys life now. He's earned it.