Unlike the last time when Steve Spurrier was coaching the 2014 Gamecocks against the Wildcats in Lexington, the “Head Ball Coach” – once popularly known as college football’s most quotable coach — won’t be pacing on South Carolina’s sidelines this Saturday night at Commonwealth Stadium.
As you know, Spurrier stepped down from his post in the middle of the 2015 campaign and he is now working for the Florida Gators as ambassador and consultant. Florida recent renamed its home facility as Steve Spurrier-Florida Field at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium.
If you are a Kentucky fan, you probably won’t miss him much for beating up or embarrassing the Wildcats over the years. But, like many sportswriters, I’ll miss him. He’s so colorful. Outspoken. Politically incorrect. Quotable. Arrogant. Candid. Cocky. He certainly was different from the other coaches who often seem to worry about ruffling other people feelings when dealing with the media.
I’ll never forget my exclusive interview with Spurrier, a five-time SEC Coach of the Year. It took place in the early 1990s after a Kentucky-Florida game in Lexington. After he finished his post-game press conference, I boldly approached him for a brief interview. Surprisingly, Spurrier, then 45 years old, said okay and we actually did our interview during his radio show while on long commercial breaks near the visitors’ dressing room under the Commonwealth Stadium seats. Just me and him in a small hallway along with some radio equipment.
And I’m sure Spurrier doesn’t remember me, but I wrote many other articles or columns about him for many years.
Now I have been reading Spurrier’s new autobiography, “Head Ball Coach: My Life in Football” (Blue Rider Press, $26). Co-written with Buddy Martin, the 298-page hardcover is pretty interesting. It is filled with numerous personal stories and tidbits.
For instance, Spurrier –- whose dad was a Presbyterian minister who loved sports — unknowingly broke NCAA rules, such as giving a recruit a ride home, during his first coaching job when he worked with quarterbacks at Florida in 1978 after 10 NFL seasons. He explained the rules had changed significantly since he was a freshman at Florida in the early 1960s. Spurrier, who captured the coveted Heisman Trophy in 1966, added his boss, Doug Dickey, probably didn’t realize how green the ex-Gator star was.
Besides football, Spurrier also excelled in basketball and baseball in high school in Johnson City, Tenn. His father has always thought the younger Spurrier should’ve played baseball. During recruitment, legendary Tennessee mentor Ray Mears even offered him a basketball scholarship. Spurrier also had Kentucky on the list of possible schools as he visited coach Charlie Bradshaw’s gridiron program in Lexington.
Spurrier, now 71, also mentioned the famous Gatorade experiment at UF in 1965. “A lot of it tasted pretty bad,” he said. “But eventually they started adding Kool-Aid or lemon or something to it and it was pretty good.”
The “Head Ball Coach” book also revealed that Spurrier doesn’t believe in going off the record when talking to the media. He pointed out his “quotes were very much a part of who I am and how I coached.” He once called rival Florida State the “Free Shoes University.”
Interestingly, the book also discussed UK basketball coach John Calipari and his short break in Florida during the hoops campaign. Coach Cal and Spurrier chat every now and then.
If you are an SEC football fan, you will enjoy a copy. Highly recommended.
For the record, Spurrier is the all-time second-winningest SEC coach with a mark of 208-76-1 (at Florida and South Carolina), behind Paul “Bear” Bryant’s 292 victories as SEC coach. His overall coaching record was 228-89-2, including 20-13-1 at Duke. He also was the head coach in the NFL and the old United States Football League.
And he was really good against the Wildcats, winning 20 out of 23 games, but dropped the last two meetings – 2014 (45-38 in Lexington) and 2015 (26-22 in Columbia) — in the series.
By the way, there was a recent tweet that showed a picture of Spurrier’s nameplate in his Gator office, revealing “HBC.”
How appropriate.
Will Muschamp, the former Florida coach, is in his first year as the head coach at South Carolina.
Spurrier said he attempted to lure Muschamp to USC as an assistant after the 2014 season when the latter was dismissed by the Gators. But Muschamp became the defensive coordinator at Auburn.
In a January story by Matt Connolly in Columbia’s The State newspaper, Spurrier commented, “I tried to hire him. It’s sort of funny, after two seasons ago when he was available, he called me up and said, ‘I’ve gotta go to Auburn. My wife went to school there and I know all those people and this, that and the other.’
“I said, ‘Why don’t you come here? Maybe when it’s time for me to hang it up you’ll be next in line to get the job.’ But he was a little smarter than that. He said, ‘I’ll wait for you to hang it up and then I’ll go get the job.’ And that’s how it worked out. It’s interesting how life is.”
With its new coaching staff, how different is South Carolina, which is now 2-1 after defeating East Carolina 20-15 last weekend? Kentucky coach Mark Stoops was asked that question on Monday.
“You see what they’re doing defensively is the same as what (coach) Will Muschamp has done (at other schools), just less right now,” said Stoops. “It looks like he builds a little more each week but you see the core of what they are defensively. Offensively, it’ll be much of what you saw last week and then they’ll build off that.”
According to Vegas odds, Kentucky is a two-point favorite as of Tuesday morning. Want my fearless forecast of the UK-South Carolina showdown?
Gamecocks by 6.
Jamie H. Vaught, a longtime columnist in Kentucky, is the author of four books about UK basketball. He is the editor of KySportsStyle.com online magazine and a professor at Southeast Kentucky Community and Technical College in Middlesboro. You can follow him on Twitter @KySportsStyle or reach him via e-mail at KySportsStyle@gmail.com.