Sunday Extra

New, major task greets same Ol' Ball Coach

Steve Spurrier, who brought a winner to Florida, has South Carolina fans dreaming of similar heights for their long-downtrodden program.

By JOANNE KORTH
Published April 10, 2005

	[AP photo]
	Steve Spurrier has energized South Carolina's fan base.

COLUMBIA, S.C. - Play after play, quarterbacks dropped back to pass. They threw slant routes and out routes, posts and corners. Deep down the sideline. Short over the middle. For more than 20 minutes of seven-on-seven drills, they threw and threw and threw.

Mostly, incomplete.

Whiz, 2 feet over a receiver's head. Zing, 1 yard behind. Thud, 2 yards short. This was what a crowd of more than 200 sanguine South Carolina fans left work early on a sunny, 70-degree afternoon to watch - the Fun 'n' Gun offense at point-blank range - but errant passes were not what they hoped to see.

With every ball that sailed high or skipped low, heads collectively turned to catch the reaction of one man. The man who would fix those throws, among other things. The man solely responsible for yet another renewal of high hopes for South Carolina football, a program intimately familiar with missing the target.

The man in the visor.

Showing no sign of frustration, Steve Spurrier glanced at the sheet of paper in his hand and called the next play. After two miserable years in the NFL and one season away from football, Spurrier is at home again in the college game he loves, preparing for the first season of his last coaching job at a school that adores him - already.

"Everyone has been so receptive and appreciative that I'm here," Spurrier said after a recent spring practice at which spectators stood three-deep to watch the Gamecocks' workout. "These fans are starving, hungry for a winner. Hopefully we can give them something to really yell about because they deserve it. They've sort of been beat down a lot of years."

The nation will get a close look at Spurrier in his new colors when the Garnet and Black game is televised at 1 p.m. Saturday on ESPN2 and ESPNU. School officials expect attendance for the annual intrasquad game to shatter the record of 19,200 - admission is free - and the athletic department Web site is counting down the seconds until kickoff. That's a lot of fuss for a 48-minute game with a running clock, but, hey, it's the start of the Spurrier era. South Carolina fans haven't been this delirious since ... well ... never.

As of the start of spring practice in March, Gamecock Club donations were $3-million ahead of the same time last year, including $1-million from new members. More than 2,500 came out to the first day of drills, and players weren't even wearing pads.

"I absolutely love it," said Nathan Catoe, a 2003 alumnus who drove 90 minutes from Charlotte, N.C., to watch practice with his father, Ken Catoe, Class of '73. "We've got a good thing going now. We've always had good defense and that's going to continue. Now we're going to have a coach with an offensive spark."

In the 138 days since Spurrier stepped to a microphone wearing a garnet tie, he has inked what analysts consider a top-20 recruiting class, purchased a home in a gated golf course community and set a strict tone for discipline by kicking three players off the team, including the starting tailback. He has assembled a top-notch coaching staff that includes his son, receivers coach Steve Jr., begun working with four extremely green quarterbacks and scribbled "Go Gamecocks" beneath his signature hundreds of times.

Eventually, he will grow comfortable with the shortened version USC faithful say quite naturally and without a hint of obscenity - "Go Cocks" - but he's not there yet. Maybe by summer, when he hits the Gamecock Club circuit.

"It's politically okay, they tell me," he said.

The past five months have been a Carolina crash course for Spurrier, who shocked scores of Gator fans when he withdrew from his alma mater's coaching search only to land weeks later at a Southeastern Conference school in the same division.

But he likes it here. Spurrier ably recites a fact he learned during recruiting, that Columbia was voted the nation's top mid-sized city with a university.

Centrally located in a region of the state called the Midlands, Columbia is the state capital, home to roughly 115,000 residents who get their groceries at Piggly Wiggly and their mustard-based barbecue at Maurice's Piggie Park.

Spurrier eats out a lot these days - he is living the bachelor's life in a luxury hotel as his wife Jerri and son Scotty stay in their Virginia home for the remainder of Scotty's senior year of high school - but the Ol' Ball Coach is having a hard time paying for any of his meals at area restaurants.

"Or else we get 50 percent off," he said.

On the edge of town, on the far side of the state fairgrounds, on a boulevard named for 1980 Heisman Trophy winner George Rogers, sits Williams-Brice Stadium. Spurrier's new playground.

"Everything is here for us to be successful," said Spurrier, who signed a seven-year contract worth $8.75-million, plus incentives. "We have a strong academic university that gives our players a chance to graduate. We've got fans who give a lot of money. We've got a stadium that seats over 80,000 and they sell all the tickets. Our facilities are as good as anywhere I've been."

The hope here is that Spurrier, who turns 60 on April 20, will be different, a cut above the litany of coaches who claimed South Carolina possessed the ingredients for greatness, but failed to deliver.

Fans were giddy when Lou Holtz, who won a national championship at Notre Dame, came out of retirement in 1999 to rescue the downtrodden Gamecocks. Holtz thrust South Carolina into the national spotlight and brought unprecedented success by delivering the best two-year stretch in school history: 8-4 and 9-3 records and Outback Bowl victories in 2000 and 2001, the school's first New Year's Day appearances in 100-plus years of football. But he was unable to sustain the positive vibe.

Two days after a loss to Clemson that featured a disgraceful, bench-clearing brawl, Holtz retired. The next day, with Spurrier holding the flip card, expectations in Columbia were once again thin-air high.

Fans shoved their Cock-a-Doodle-Lou shirts in a bottom drawer and flocked to campus stores for the latest in zealous apparel. T-shirts and visors touted the arrival of a coach who revolutionized college football with his scoreboard-scorching offense. According to one popular design, "He was always a little cocky, now he's all Gamecock."

Never mind that USC has no quarterback, lost its leading rusher and receiver and all four starting defensive linemen to graduation, the NFL or dismissal.

Reality spoils the fun.

"The fans here are excited because their expectations have never been met," said Steve Jr., 33, who coached with his father at Florida and in the NFL. "Expectations are similar everywhere, but if we even get close to those expectations here they'll be really thrilled. (My father) is excited to be back coaching and we feel really good about this university and the facilities and the future here."

South Carolina recently completed a $3.2-million addition to the stadium's south end zone that includes a football-only weight facility, an auditorium for full-team meetings and smaller rooms for position coaches to hold meetings with players.

Spurrier's office is on the third floor of a 1996 addition in the north end zone. It is spacious, yet sparsely decorated by a large desk, an arrangement of leather furniture and a few family photos. Nothing in the room recalls Spurrier's success at Florida, where he won seven SEC titles in 12 seasons before leaving to coach the Washington Redskins.

A wall of windows overlooks the playing field, a grassy canvas for what fans hope will be Spurrier's next masterpiece. South Carolina has one league title in its history, in 1969 as a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference.

In many ways, this is a good fit for Spurrier. The bitter in-state rival, Clemson, is coached by a Bowden, Bobby's son Tommy. College football is king in a state with no professional sports teams. No one will question his decision to dismiss starting tailback Demetris Summers for violating team rules.

"Since I was hired in November we've had three players get arrested who are no longer with the team," said Spurrier, who also suspended star defensive lineman Moe Thompson, who faces burglary charges and likely will not return. "It's disheartening, it's embarrassing, but we just have to move on and let our players know that you can't do those things and play for us."

And here's one more thing that piques Spurrier: The Gamecocks have a tradition for strong defense dating to beloved coach Joe Morrison's Fire Ant Defense of the 1980s, but need offense like a drowning man needs oxygen.

The past three quarterbacks to start for Holtz were hardly classic passers: Corey Jenkins became an NFL linebacker; Dondrial Pinkins didn't put his fingers on the laces when he threw; and Syvelle Newton, who replaced an injured Pinkins at times last season, has moved to receiver.

Candidates include Blake Mitchell, a sophomore; Antonio Heffner, a freshman who fit Holtz's mold of running quarterbacks; and Brett Nichols, a junior walk-on. Only Mitchell has appeared in games, with 86 passing yards as a freshman. Whoever wins the job, safe to say, he will make use of the laces.

"Coach Spurrier is considered the best offensive coach in college football and it's a lot of fun learning from him and trying to get better," said Nichols, who did not have to be told that Shane Matthews was fifth on the depth chart when Spurrier got to Florida. "His wide-open offense is what everybody wants to run."

And watch.

Even if it's only spring.

[Last modified April 10, 2005, 00:40:18]