Tampa, Florida					Monday, September 06, 2010

So Long, Again, Steve Spurrier
Wednesday, December 31, 2003
TAMPA—The soldout luncheon, sponsored by the Ed DeBartolo Corporation, preliminary to the Outback Bowl –matching the Big Ten’s Iowa and the Southeastern Conference’s Florida—was done and The Tampa Tribune’s Martin Fennelly and I were in the emptying Downtown Hyatt Hotel Ballroom visiting with Florida Gator Coach Ron Zook and Florida Athletic Director Jeremy Foley. We both wanted to write something about Zook, in his second year as head coach at Florida. We had just had out pleasantries when up to us came Gator sports publicity chief Steve McLain and said, “someone on television just reported Steve (Spurrier) resigned at Washington (from the NFL Redskins).’’ We looked at each other, saying nothing at first. We did not believe it. We all but brushed it aside, then asked McClain to check further. It wasn’t, after all, if true, so surprising after all, knowing Spurrier as we—Foley, Zook and I did. He’d threatened to do that before. We knew he was terribly unhappy coaching in the NFL, living near Washington. I guess we wondered how SOS (Stephen Orr Spurrier) could leave some $15 million on his unexpired contract on the Redskins owner’s table—aggressive Dan Synder’s table. Remember, two years ago when Spurrier shocked us all by quitting at Florida after an Orange Bowl win and 12 years there, he had called his AD, and friend, Foley, to tell him. Foley hired Zook, a former Spurrier aide, to become the head coach, a surprising coach to some, and I had covered for The Tribune through his playing and coaching career. We were friends. I blurted, “are you sure? With three years to go on a $5 million a year contract? Why, he and I had talked by phone, from our home to home, Christmas night. We were just visiting. No questions. He said nothing about leaving, though I knew he and Jerri (wife) were unhappy.’’ Foley put in, “he (Spurrier) left a message on my phone yesterday, but it was just a greeting. He said nothing about quitting. Shocks me.’’ “Me, too,’’ said his successor, Zook, who had a disappointing season in 2003 and some thought this year in 2004 with an 8-4 season so far and Iowa in the Outback left. He lost to Michigan in the Outback Bowl a year ago when a trick play went awry late. “I had no idea,’’ said Zook. “Wow. Don’t know what else today.’’ I said, “Shocks me. I did not expect this.’’ McClain came back and said, “the first report was that Steve called his owner, Mr. Daniel Snyder, this morning from Florida and said he was quitting.’’ Later it was learned he was quitting, he had hired an agent to work the details, came to Florida to golf it out, but it leaked and he confirmed the shocking move. We all knew the Spurriers had arrived in Florida for that holiday and visits at his places at Jacksonville (Crescent Beach, which he loves) and Gainesville, the home of the University of Florida, which he also loves. We all thought he was coming to the sunshine, which the Spurriers love, for fun and golf, not in flight, or refuge. “Well, this is the way he did it when he left Florida for Washington, wasn’t it Jeremy (Foley).’’ I asked. Foley nodded. Called Foley the morning after the Orange Bowl. I was surprised, as I am now.’’ Fascinating, wasn’t it. Two of the principles in the Spurrier Saga, and me, the historian of it, there together after the Outback luncheon in Tampa where the Gators of Zook and Foley were readying to play Iowa in the New Year’s Outback Bowl. And in the Tampa town where Spurrier lived in the 80s and coached, and well, the old, now gone, Tampa Bandits of the old United States Football League, after the late John Bassett went to Duke, on my recommendation, visited with the then Duke offensive coordinator Steve Spurrier. He hired him to his first head coaching job, with the old Bandits Bassett owned with movie actor Burt Reynolds. Spurrier was a winning coach in the USFL, popular in the Tampa Bay area, where son Scotty arrived in their family. Spurrier went on to a college coaching career, returning to his old Gators as the head coach to which he brought a national championship, the only one ever there, in 1996. And as even more unlikely, had won an Atlantic Coast Conference championship at Duke, before the conquering return to his Gator Nation where he was indeed a savior. Then in time, a loathing for recruiting, the title in the national title a fact, a not-so-hot lot of players returning for the 2002 season, some said, and that can’t refuse $25 million for five year offer from the Redskins, too much to turn down. But, now, Spurrier, who changed the face of college football, with his innovative passing game, The Ball Coach, as he called himself, found out he and wife Jerri did not like the pros, the cold weather, the whole package, and flat quit. First, he surprised that circle of friends there after the Tuesday Outback Bowl luncheon at the Tampa Downtown Hyatt, after he had surprised us all by not winning at the Redskins but going only 12-20 in his two years in the NFL. Honestly,	in the television sideline shots of him last Saturday night when Philadelphia ran rampant over his team, he looked drawn, haggard and uncomfortable. I felt for him then. I do now, for the manner of his departure and his failure to turn pro ball upside down as he did college ball. That, the quitting, at a losing time, surprised us all, none any more than the three of us there in the Hyatt Ballroom who knew him so well, me, AD Foley and Zook, who will forever be compared to Spurrier at Florida. Some will wonder about the Foley decision for his old friend Zook. Me, I was flabbergasted that SOS quit losing and without more notice to his Redskins, though sure Washington team owner Snyder, knew it was coming. Snyder said he was disappointed in the Spurrier flight, too. He said he liked him and wanted him around, but his system did not allow SOS the freedom of player selection and retention, and of assistant coaches, that Spurrier wanted. All there in that Tampa Ballroom, and all the Gator players still rostered at Florida from the Spurrier Days, were surprised, as were the Gator coaches who had worked with him, like Charley Strong, defensive coordinator, and old friend, Dwyane Dixon. The Outback Bowl game was suddenly off the radar screen. Spurrier was all over it, again. The Outback Bowl was suddenly not the bowl news of the day, nationwide. But, not because of the matchup, but because of the wonder of Spurrier’s future. Surely. . . well, would he become a candidate to return to Florida? Lord, he was popular as a Gator. And Zook has had his feet to the fire in his time at Florida, but seems to have strengthened his grip despite the record so far. In truth, a win over Iowa in the Outback Bowl, will settle him in and settle Gator fans down. No, no one—including Foley, Zook, and I—saw any chance of his return to Florida, surely not now, and perhaps in the near future. Steve is 58, now, and bet here is he’ll take a year or more off. Oh, some think Rich McKay, the former Tampa Bay Buc general manager now in Atlanta which has now no head coach but a quarterback (Michael Vick) of great ability and even more potential, is rostered. And it is in the South, up Tobacco Road from Jacksonville, Gainesville, and Augusta National, where the Masters and great golfers play. And yes, perhaps that’s a bet. McKay wanted Spurrier at Tampa for a time after Tony Dungy was fired two years ago, but the Buc owners wanted and got Jon Gruden. Know this: What ever he and wife Jerri do—and she is a big part of all this—it will be centered in the sunshine, somewhere, where golf can be played 12 months, and not too far from Tampa, where young son Scotty will go to college in a year. And know this, too, by the way, where ever he lands, he’ll make news again, upstage something and someone else. Oh, I mentioned how ironic it was that Foley, Zook, McClain and I were together when the Spurrier news broke. There’s is more. I had sat at the luncheon at the New York Yankees table with Spurrier’s old Ball Coach, Ray Graves. Graves, who has a birthday to celebrate this week, recruited Spurrier to Florida, coached him up so well he won the Heisman Trophy and Florida so many great games. We had talked of Steve during lunch, Graves and I, Ray saying, “Been good to me in every way. Whatever he does, well, Spurrier deserves the best for he has given us Gators the best, as a player and coaching.’’ Finally, also shocked, was his genuine friend, Tom Shannon, Outback Steakhouse owner who played with Spurrier at Florida as the quarterback preceding SOS. “You know how close we are,’’ he said, at another Outback Bowl event later in the day, “and how we went to watch him work at Washington, but, it’s too bad. I wanted him to set the NFL on fire, and thought he would. Shoot.’’ Spurrier was most of all the coach who brought a national title to the Gators, who never cheated, ever, in anyway, and said you better not either. A writer from Baton Rouge, when SOS went to the pros, wrote that the SEC would miss his spirit, his innovation and all out offense that college football adopted, but most of all would miss his honesty. He said, the writer, what he said in public, he challenged all to a fair fight, for that was the way he fought fair. He’s a good man gone for now from this sport he loves so and for which he did so much. Will he be back? Maybe, but thinking is later, than sooner. Hey, I remember when he sat out a year, in Tampa, where old coach Pepper Rodgers found him, returned him to football as an assistant coach at Georgia coach, and set him on his way to great achievements. Now, SOS leaves Pepper again. Pepper is a Snyder consultant at Washington and actually suggested Spurrier to Snyder for the Skins. “I regret this,’’ said Pepper, reacting as we all did, in shock and dismay, but surely no criticism, for all knew he would always do what he and Jerri thought best for that close family and whomever they will serve next. ##
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