Mike Bianchi:
Spurrier is state’s most vital sports icon.
NEW YORK — His nickname, “Head Ball Coach,” no longer does justice to Steve Spurrier.
He is not just the Florida Gators’ legendary HBC; he is the State of Florida’s iconic MVP – Most Vital Personality. He is, by my estimation, the most important and impactful sports figure in Sunshine State history.
This struck me Monday night during a brief conversation with Clemson coach Dabo Swinney at an Italian restaurant in New York City, where the University of Florida held a reception to honor Spurrier’s induction into the College Football Hall of Fame.
Swinney, just a day after it was announced his team had advanced to the College Football Playoff, flew up to New York to pay homage to Spurrier — his former coaching rival at South Carolina, his friend and a man he admires.
“I’ve always been a fan of coach Spurrier’s,” Swinney said. “He
made college football more fun and more interesting. When he was coaching at South Carolina, he would poke at me and I would poke back if I felt I needed to. He wasn’t just a great coach; he was an amazing personality.”
And the most influential sports personality our state has ever witnessed. On Tuesday night at the New York Hilton Midtown, Spurrier became only the fourth individual ever to be inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as both a player (during a 1986 ceremony) and now as a coach.
When I sat in Spurrier’s office at UF recently, he rattled off the other three names — Amos AlonzoStagg, Bobby Dodd and Bowden Wyatt — on the exclusive list and then added a bit of perspective. “It’s pretty neat to be one of only four guys who are Hall of Famers as both a player and a coach. You know me: I’ve always like accomplishing things that have rarely been done.”
This is why Spurrier walks alone in the land of the Sunshine State’s sporting giants. He not only put college football on the map as a player when he won the state’s first Heisman Trophy in 1966, but also he ignited the state’s most passionate fan base — pro or college — as the Head Ball Coach when he took over the Gators in 1990.
Yes, Florida State’s Bobby Bowden was important as a coach — as was Don Shula of the Miami Dolphins and Jake Gaither, the legendary coach at Florida A&M. Likewise, there were important pro and college athletes as well — immortal figures like Lee Roy Selmon, Shaq, Dwyane Wade, Tim Tebow, Bob Griese, Charlie Ward, Danny Wuerffel, Vinny Testaverde, etc. But never has there been a man who became a legend as both a coach and a player.
“Coach Spurrier changed the trajectory of lives,” Wuerffel said.
And he changed the trajectory of sports.
It started with the trajectory of his famous kick in the Gators’ 1966 homecoming game against Auburn when Heisman ballots had been mailed a week before the game and were due a week afterward. The nation’s top sports writers jammed into Florida Field’s press box to see if Spurrier was as good as publicized.
Spurrier turned in the best performance of his college career — completing 27 of 40 passes for 259 yards and a touchdown, and punting seven times for a 46.9-yard average. But with 2 minutes, 12 seconds remaining, the score was tied, 27-27, and Florida’s last-ditch drive petered out at Auburn’s 25.
The Gators, facing a 40-yard field goal, could turn to kicker Wayne Barfield, but he had never kicked from such a long distance. Spurrier was the team’s long-range kicker, but he had attempted only three all season and hadn’t made a field goal since the opener. Spurrier went over to head coach Ray Graves and said, “Coach, give me a shot. I’ll make it.”
“Go kick it, Orr!” Graves said, calling Spurrier by his middle name. “Go out there and kick it!”
And, so, Spurrier kicked himself into college football lore. The field goal barely cleared the uprights, the Gators won the game 30-27 and Spurrier won the Heisman Trophy and became a mythical figure in the state of Florida. His high-top kicking shoe is in the Florida Sports Hall of Fame.
Wrote John Logue of the Atlanta Journal after the kick: “Blindfolded, with his back to the wall, with his hands tied behind him, Steve Spurrier would still be a two-point favorite at his own execution.”
And, remember, this was back in a day and time when college football was bigger than the NFL – especially in Florida. In 1966, the expansion Miami Dolphins were playing their first season and were the only professional sports franchise in the state. There was no NBA, no NHL, no Major League Baseball, no Major League Soccer, no nothing. There was the fledgling Dolphins playing in the upstart AFL and there was Steve Spurrier.
Spurrier was drafted in the first round by the San Francisco 49ers and it didn’t matter that he would become a career backup quarterback. Late, great Tampa Tribune sports columnist Tom McEwen told me once that when Spurrier went to San Francisco, the 49ers immediately became the most popular NFL team in Florida.
Amazingly, Spurrier would go on to become a much greater coach than he ever was a player.
He transformed Florida football and revolutionized the Southeastern Conference. He coached the Gators to a school-first SEC championship and a school-first national title. In all, he won six SEC titles and dominated the league like nobody had since Bear Bryant.
In addition, Spurrier led perennially pathetic Duke to its first Atlantic Coast Conference title since 1962. And at South Carolina, a program with just five bowl appearances and one 10-win season in its history, Spurrier guided the Gamecocks to nine bowls and three-straight 11-win seasons at one point. Spurrier is the winningest coach in history of both Florida and South Carolina.
“He has meant everything to me and to the sport of college football,” said future Hall of Fame coach Bob Stoops, Spurrier’s defensive coordinator when the Gators won the 1996 national championship. “He is one of the all-time greats.”
In our passionate pigskin peninsula, he is THE alltime great.
In the Sunshine State, no sports figure has ever beamed as brightly as Stephen Orr Spurrier.