Spurrier 2: He can't resist a challenge

Every year, just after the bowl games, he reserved a small window of opportunity to talk with NFL suitors, like after the ’95 season when he almost took a job with Tampa Bay, or after the ’96 national championship season when he considered resurrecting the woeful New Orleans Saints.

No one thought he’d leave his alma mater, the place where he won the ’66 Heisman Trophy, where he often said after wins that "there’s a lot of happy Gators today."

But after winning the national title in ’96, Florida won just one SEC championship in the next five years. That’s when those people closest to Spurrier saw someone worn thin by the pressure and lofty expectations his success had created.

"The biggest difference in Steve’s first six years and his last six is that in his last six, many times after a win he’d say he was more relieved they’d won, rather than being excited and happy they’d won," said John Humenik, Florida’s former media relations director.

"After he’d won four SEC championships in a row through 1996, I think people forgot how hard it was to do what he was doing. So when you slip down a bit, win nine or 10 games and not win a championship, then everybody walks around like it was the biggest disappointment in the world."

Even though Florida quarterback Rex Grossman set a school passing yardage record in ’01, the rest of the SEC had begun to close the gap. Schools began recruiting more athletic defensive players to match Spurrier’s speed on offense, and also signed better passing quarterbacks and receivers to spread the field offensively, a la Spurrier.

"Other coaches thought if Florida could throw the ball like that, they should be able to do it, also," Spurrier said.

He needed a new challenge. His final frontier was the NFL.

Packing and unpacking

So on Jan. 14, 2002, 10 days after resigning from Florida, Spurrier took the leap to the Washington Redskins. The day he accepted the job, he said, "I’m intrigued to see if my style of coaching would be successful in the NFL."

It took him just two seasons to learn the answer.

The plays drawn up by Spurrier that were magic in college didn’t work as well in the NFL. One reason was, unlike college where he recruited players to fit his system, players who stayed at least three seasons, he discovered he didn’t have the same kind of control in the free agent-happy NFL.

"Our first year wasn’t bad," Spurrier said. "We were 7-9; we thought we strengthened our team with some free agents. Some of them got hurt; some of them didn’t play very well."

Still, Spurrier had hoped to give this NFL thing a go. He had signed a five-year contract, and a deal is a deal.

Until ...

"At the start of the second season, we were putting a team together, and the owner picked the quarterbacks," Spurrier said. "That’s when I knew this ain’t going to work. It also happened with a couple of other players. As a coaching staff, we didn’t pick the team. We lost that argument and did the best we could."

In his last season, in 2003, which ended with a 5-11 record, the Redskins’ worst since 1994, Spurrier and vice president of football operations Vinny Cerrato didn’t see eye-to-eye on personnel. Spurrier refused to play several high-profile free agents.

Also, Spurrier wasn’t happy that owner Dan Snyder agreed with Cerrato in the ’03 preseason when the Redskins cut quarterback Danny Wuerrffel, Spurrier’s Heisman Trophy-winning QB on the ’96 Florida national championship team. Spurrier signed Wuerffel in ’02 as a backup to teach his system to starter Patrick Ramsey.

One day after the ’03 season ended, Spurrier resigned and started a 10-month hiatus.

"I thought maybe I’d coach in the NFL five or six years and that would be the end of my coaching career,’’ he said. "But after a couple of years, I knew I needed to get out. In a way, maybe it was sort of what management wanted, me to bail out. It was time for me to move on.

"I only blame myself for coaching the way I did. I got away from things that I’d done in the past.

"I haven’t worried about that (the Redskins) since I left."

Spurrier didn’t know how long he’d be out of coaching, but he knew his next stop would be a return to college.

"I wanted to get back to college ball because it’s fun for me to watch a young player develop," Spurrier said. "And most college kids don’t have all the answers, so they listen more to you than NFL players. I just missed coaching the team and being in charge."

He has definitely been in charge since being named South Carolina’s coach late last November. Despite a late recruiting start, he rallied Carolina to a national top 25 recruiting ranking, a class that included players who had previously committed to other schools.

"Our goal is to recruit on the level of a Tennessee, a Florida and a Georgia," Spurrier said. "We’re not way behind. We need to do that year after year, and then we can compete with anybody."

Like his days at Florida, he’s a stickler for discipline and for making his players accountable.

Just more than a week ago, Spurrier confirmed that as many as seven players might lose their scholarships if they didn’t start contributing more. Previously, Spurrier had dismissed five players for off-the-field incidents and violations of team policy, including star running back Demetris Summers.

During the spring when Spurrier was defending an off-the-field incident by receiver Syvelle Newton, Spurrier said, "This was not a full-blown fight. If you want to read about full-blown fights, read about the Tennessee players, not our guys."

Tennessee coach Phil Fulmer, who was handling his own rash of disciplinary problems, heard Spurrier’s verbal jab and fired back. "He’s (Spurrier) got his own business and he better sure be taking care of it ... maybe it rained that day and he didn’t get to play golf."

To which Spurrier replied in The State newspaper, "I like ol’ Phil. We get along fine. It’s no big deal. I’m glad he said something. In the past, I don’t think he’d worry about what a South Carolina coach said."

Jimmy Sexton, Spurrier’s Memphis-based agent who is also Fulmer’s agent, said the two men have a healthy respect for each other. Fulmer, 3-7 against Spurrier including two wins in their last four meetings, confirmed as much when the league’s coaches gathered in early June at the annual SEC business meetings in Destin, Fla.

"Steve has a wit that can rub you the wrong way at times," Fulmer said. "He has his own way of doing things, but that’s just Steve and that’s OK. I can promise you it’s going to be interesting.

"I like him and enjoy being with him from a social standpoint, and my wife and his wife are good friends. Besides, how can you not respect him as a person and for all he’s accomplished?"

As Fulmer continues to get roasted by Alabama fans who believe he went out of his way to get the Tide football program on NCAA probation because of the Albert Means scandal, it has been Spurrier who defended him.

"Some Alabama people are saying he (Fulmer) did more than just answer to NCAA investigators," said Spurrier, who first turned in Alabama to the NCAA on the recruiting of Justin Smiley, an offensive lineman who switched his commitment from Florida to Alabama. "As far as I know, they called him, asked him what he knew and he said what he thought he knew. Then they investigated it.

"Maybe those Alabama people don’t like coach Fulmer because he has beaten them nine out of the last 10. You think that has a little bit to do with it?"

Spurrier said he approaches fair play in the governing of NCAA rules like he does when playing golf.

"If you think somebody is cheating in golf, you call him out immediately," Spurrier said. "If he doesn’t like it, tough luck. The guys that turn a cheater in are admired. That’s the way it ought to be (in football). We all know what’s cheating and what’s not. Coaches ought to be accountable."

Spurrier’s newest rival might be his alma mater.

In the spring, when Spurrier was asked about new Florida coach Urban Meyer, he replied in what was perceived as a needle, "He’s had an excellent four-year coaching career."

Spurrier doesn’t have to play in Gainesville this season, since the Gators come to Columbia on Nov. 12. Florida fans requested 15,000 tickets, but were allotted half that amount.

Meyer, who met Spurrier for the first time ever at the SEC business meetings, is refusing to get drawn into any Spurrier controversy.

"People like to stir it up every time Steve says something," Meyer said. "I admire what he did at Florida. He’s a legend."

The challenge

But can Spurrier become a legend again? And if he doesn’t, will it tarnish what he did at Florida?

His mode of operation is taking dramatically underachieving programs and turning them into champions.

In just three seasons at Duke from 1987-89, he turned the Blue Devils from coach Steve Sloan’s 4-7 1986 team into the Atlantic Coast Conference champions in ’89, something they haven’t accomplished since. Florida had never won an SEC championship before Spurrier arrived in 1990 with his Fun and Gun offense.

South Carolina is in the same mold. It has stunning facilities and faithful fan support, yet the Gamecocks have had just three bowl wins and one conference title (the 1969 Atlantic Coast Conference championship) since the program started in 1892.

Since joining the SEC in 1992 when the league expanded to 12 teams and split into two divisions, the Gamecocks have never finished better than third in an Eastern Division featuring Tennessee, Florida and Georgia. South Carolina is a combined 5-34 (1-12 vs. Tennessee, 0-13 vs. Florida and 4-9 vs. Georgia) against that trio since joining the conference.

Lou Holtz was supposed to be the Carolina savior. He squeezed out 8-4 and 9-5 records in 2000 and 2001, ending both seasons with Outback Bowl wins over Ohio State.

But in the end, after three consecutive losing seasons and 33 years as a college head coach, Holtz, 68, didn’t have the energy to deal with the totality of the job, nor the offensive panache required to compete with the Vols, Gators and Bulldogs. Which is why Spurrier was hired.

"There’s no question that coach Spurrier has a mindset and a style of offense that has been great in college," said Wuerffel, who’s now development director of Desire Street Ministries in New Orleans. "He’s got an incredible way of organizing a downfield passing attack and just exploiting the really long throws. We had so many formations, so many ways we could attack you, that it was really hard to prepare for us."

Spurrier’s first challenge is to find a starting quarterback he trusts. He has three returnees on hand with little or no experience, including Memphis Melrose’s Antonio Heffner, who ended the spring as the starter.

Spurrier also signed two quarterbacks, including North Carolina commit Cade Thompson of Maryville, Tenn., a town next to Knoxville and current home of Fulmer.

Whoever the starter is, he’ll have to be as mentally tough as Wuerffel, whose strong Christian values seemed to be an asset when dealing with the nit-picking perfectionist Spurrier.

"You must trust the system and really listen to what coach Spurrier is saying," Wuerffel said. "He harps on details that you don’t think matter, like your head position when you drop and throw. But in the big picture, all those details do matter. It’s something I realized as I got older."

Wuerffel said he has talked to Spurrier a couple of times since he returned to campus.

"I know he’s excited be back in the SEC and excited to be the underdog," Wuerffel said. "He likes to surprise people, to do more than anyone expects. He raised the bar so high at Florida, he couldn’t do that anymore. I think he’s in a great place now."

It don’t come easy

Spurrier realizes he’s not taking over a team with the same type of talent he inherited at Florida in 1990, when he turned the 7-4 ’89 Gators into a 9-2 team that had the best record in the SEC at 6-1. But his first Florida team was ineligible for the league championship, because of the NCAA probation Spurrier inherited from previous coach Galen Hall.

South Carolina recently admitted to 10 rules violations under Holtz, five of which the school termed major. While they await a hearing and a ruling from the NCAA, part of the self-punishment suggested by the school is a two-year probation.

Spurrier hasn’t blinked. He understands that Carolina fans have waited forever to have a consistent winner.

"The fans at South Carolina have paid their dues for many, many years, and not collected much in return," Spurrier said. "Hopefully, we can give them something to be proud of real soon."

Spurrier also has a personal goal — to surpass Rex Enright (64-69-7 from 1938-42, 46-55) as South Carolina’s winningest coach.

"That’s going to take seven, eight, nine years," Spurrier said.

In its history, Carolina has only had seven seasons of eight or more wins. So according to Spurrier’s math, eight or nine wins annually until he’s almost 70 years old should help him reach his goal.

On Spurrier’s 60th birthday on April 20, Spurrier, his wife, The State newspaper sports columnist Ron Morris and the Carolina coaching staff participated in what Spurrier called "Orr Day," taken from his middle name.

The day was a grueling physical test, a Tour de Spurrier. It started with 300 sit-ups and 300 pushups, three sets of 60 reps each of various weight exercises for the arms, 20 minutes of running on a treadmill, 20 minutes on a Stairmaster, 20 minutes on a stationary bike (on which Spurrier talked on his cell phone), 60 laps (30 miles) around Williams-Brice Stadium on a bike and nine holes of golf.

Spurrier ran everybody in the ground. His point was to prove to everyone that there’s a lot of fuel left in his coaching tank.

"I feel pretty good," said Spurrier, "so I don’t know why I can’t do that (coach until he’s 70). This is what I do. Coaching is a lot more fun than acting retired for 10 months."