It was the kind of thing that was bound to go viral. When photos of
South Carolina Coach Steve Spurrier shirtless and barefoot on the
Gamecocks’ practice field spread over the Internet like spring pollen,
some people laughed while others shook their heads and groaned. But no
one who knows anything about Spurrier was the least bit surprised.
The
Head Ball Coach is 68, the oldest coach in the SEC by seven years (Nick
Saban and Gary Pinkel are both 61) and he is still doing things his way
without a care in the world for what others think. He also shows no
sign of losing interest or slowing down.
There are a few nods to
age -- a paunch that is a bit more expansive than before and a lost
name or two that he used to know -- but the energy and enthusiasm is as
pervasive as ever.
Just watching him burns calories. Forget
sitting still, the man cannot stand in one spot for more than a second
or two without some fidget or another -- a hand hitching the side of his
pants or a leg popping up as if he’s been stung by a bee. Spurrier is a
man of perpetual motion, an example of work keeping you sharp into your
sunset years.
Four football seasons ago the retirement rumors
ran rampant. Spurrier tried to quash them, but in his inimitable way, he
rambled on like a man lost in a verbal corn maze until those who heard
him had no idea what he was saying, much less what he planned to do. The
rumors became so pervasive that Spurrier had to make a special call to
Connor Shaw, the star quarterback recruit South Carolina was attempting
to sign out of Flowery Branch High School (Ga.), to assure him that he
wasn’t going anywhere.
“He told me, ‘I'm definitely staying
until we accomplish more things at South Carolina,’” Shaw said at the
time. “He said, ‘I’m nowhere near retiring.’”
Four years later,
that still appears to be the case. Spurrier has won 11 games at South
Carolina for two consecutive years, something that has never happened in
school history. His 66 wins in eight seasons are the most any Gamecocks
coach has ever amassed. But he still has things to do, like winning an
SEC Championship at a school no one thought could contend in the game’s
best conference.
“That’s the goal every year,” Spurrier said at
SEC Media Days this summer. “We start out every season knowing that
they’re going to be playing that championship game in Atlanta and that
somebody’s going to be in it from the East. We’ve been there once, and
our guys would sure like to make it there again.”
He has been a head coach since Ronald Reagan was president, since Czechoslovakia was one country and Germany was two.
He
is the same age Bear Bryant was when he retired from Alabama and a year
younger than Bryant was when he died, a fact that is hard to believe
when you look at the two side by side. Bryant looked old when he was
young while Spurrier seems to have a little Dick Clark in him, an
agelessness that keeps him perpetually in that 45-to-60 zone.
It
is only when you see him with a cadre of grandchildren by his side that
you realize his age and that he and his wife, Jerri, have been married
for 46 years.
Mrs. Spurrier travels with her husband often, but
she has called being married to him, “like hanging on to the back of a
train.” But then she quickly adds that, “It’s never boring. It’s always
fun. We never stop.”
So, when will Spurrier finally hang it up?
The
rumors have quieted for the time being, and Spurrier himself has given
no indication that he is ready to leave the gridiron or South Carolina.
Three of his four children and seven of his 11 grandchildren live in the
Columbia area, and his two sons, Steve, Jr. and Scott, work on his
staff.
“It makes it very comfortable to continue coaching when
you’ve got just about your entire family and grandkids in your
hometown,” Spurrier said in the spring.
He has a place in
Florida he visits often and memberships at some of the finest golf clubs
in America. He is wealthy and successful and could hang up the coaching
visor at any moment and be considered one of the greatest the sport has
ever known.
But the reason he doesn’t can be found in an
anecdote he recalled at his father’s funeral in 2000. Graham Spurrier, a
Presbyterian minister in Tennessee, was coaching Steve’s youth baseball
team in the early 1950s when he asked the players if they had ever
heard the expression, “It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you
play the game.”
All heads nodded.
“Who believes it?” Reverend Spurrier asked.
More than half the hands went up.
“Well,
let me tell you, that’s not exactly true,” the elder Spurrier said
gently. “The game is played to win, and we’re going to try our best to
win the game.”
Graham Spurrier’s son has done his best to win
the games ever since, as a player and as a coach. He will continue that
tradition at the end of August with the season opener against North
Carolina. That is how he lives his life. And it is why it is hard to
imagine the Old Ball Coaching calling it a career any time in the near
future.
<A
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