Dec. 31, 1989: Steve Spurrier at the news conference introducing him as head coach of the Gators.
'Hacks' Look Back at Spurrier's Arrival, Gators' Revival
Tuesday, August 30, 2016 | Football, Chris Harry
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A collection of writers who covered the Gators in 1990 recall Steve Spurrier's return to his alma mater.
By: Chris Harry, Senior Writer
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — In 1990, the University of Florida had at least 10 beat writers from newspapers around the state assigned to cover the football program, and that number doesn't include another dozen or so student stringers or student correspondents in the media horde. Three out-of-town papers put reporters in Gainesville full-time, including The Tampa Tribune, which moved me here in April of that year.
Just in time for Steve Spurrier's first season coaching the Gators.
We were a mostly tight group of "hacks." We worked really hard, hell-bent on breaking news. We woke up each morning and headed to the nearest corner lined with newspaper racks and slammed five or six quarters into the boxes to compare headlines. If you had a scoop, you understood it was good for one day only. If you got beat (and we all did sometimes), you tried to make up for it that day. When the day was over, there was a good chance you'd be sharing a beer at the chosen local waterhole.
Anyone remember P.J. O'Reilly's on 13th Street?
Among the things I recall about the run-up to Spurrier's inaugural season back at his alma mater — and my first year covering a college football team — was the five-horse QB derby that Shane Matthews basically won at the spring game in Jacksonville; Spurrier's pride in what was accomplished at Duke and his belief it could carry over in the rugged Southeastern Conference (many others around the league weren't so convinced); the hovering cloud of an NCAA investigation that involved no one still associated with the UF program at the time; the horror of the Gainesville serial murders that occured just two weeks before that first game; and a general excitement that something (maybe) would be different about the forever-underachieving Gators now that their favorite son was home.
A few days before the Sept. 8 opener against Oklahoma State, I asked Spurrier if he had anything special in mind to treat the fans. Something like he did at Duke in 1987. In the Blue Devils' opener that season against Colgate, the first play-call of Spurrier's college head-coaching career was a double-reverse to the flanker with a pass back to the quarterback. The play featured a botched lateral, a fumble and a face-mask penalty.
Maybe the most exciting nine yards in Duke football history.
"This isn't Colgate we're playing," Spurrier said. "Oklahoma State is a real, real football team."
Florida, in turn, had a real, real coach. The Gators obliterated the Cowboys 50-7 that day, gaining 567 total yards and needing just five plays to go 70 yards for a touchdown on the very first series of the season.
Away we went.
Our Tampa Tribune coverage from that first Spurrier game.
Today, back we go.
I reached out to those "media boys," as Spurrier used to call us, circa '90. With Saturday night's 2016 season opener against UMass marking the official dedication of Steve Spurrier-Florida Field at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, I asked my one-time-competitors-turned-lifelong-friends — some of them now my very best of friends — to relive thoughts and recollections of those early days chronicling the "ball coach" now set to become the ball yard's namesake. Some responded. Some didn't. I asked them to be brief. Some did. Some didn't.
When I think of Steve Spurrier, one of the first things that always pops into my mind is Georgia. I know, that sounds a little strange, but let me explain. One of the earliest memories I have of Spurrier is him getting beat up badly by a relentless Georgia pass rush in that 1966 loss that cost the Gators a chance to win their first SEC title. I think the memory of that game has always remained fresh for the HBC as well. For Spurrier, the coach, I think it's always gone back to that bad day in the Gator Bowl. During his first press conference after taking the job at his alma mater, he mentioned Georgia early, saying beating the Bulldogs would be a priority. He then went on to give the reasons why Florida should win that rivalry game: it's played in the state of Florida, in the Gator Bowl, the Bulldogs had to get on a plane and the Gators only had to hop on a bus. It made perfect sense, and the Gators, who stumbled so often in big games against the Dogs, bought in -- players and fans alike. Spurrier and the Gators then went out and completely changed the rivalry's culture, starting with the first two games -- 38-7 and 45-13 routs of Georgia. Then came the game and the outcome that really got under the Bulldogs' skin: the 1992 game that saw the Gators pull the 26-24 upset that led to UF winning the SEC East and going on to play in the first SEC Championship Game. In that '92 game in Jacksonville, the Gators did to the Bulldogs what the Bulldogs so often used to do to the Gators -- wreck their championship hopes with an almost inexplicable upset. Spurrier got so deep inside the Bulldogs' heads that the Gators would end up going 11-1 in the rivalry under the HBC. That's why I always think about Georgia when I think back to the early days of Spurrier.
This is going to be fun. Fun 'N' Gun. That was my first thought back in 1990 when I covered Steve Spurrier's first game at the University of Florida; when he brought his space-age offense to the stone-age Southeastern Conference and began "pitching it around the ballpark" to wide-open receivers who literally did back flips in the end zone after catching all those TD passes. That's when I wrote that a revolutionary new offense — "the Fun 'N' Gun" — had been born. Coining the name of Spurrier's trail-blazing offense is still perhaps the highlight of my sportswriting career – right up there with getting my picture taken with UGA the Bulldog and Chris Harry on the field in Athens, Ga., after Spurrier's Gators had buried Georgia yet again. After a lifetime of the Gators being the SEC's most laughable underachievers and following a decade of NCAA violations, investigations and consequent probations, Spurrier came home in 1990 and made it all disappear in a blissful blur of exciting, exhilarating, swaggering, swashbuckling football. He made college football colorful and entertaining – on and off the field. Obviously he had a multi-faceted legacy that included UF's first Heisman Trophy, first SEC Championship and first national title. This is all very important stuff, but not nearly as important as his most lasting contribution to Florida football: Fun. Stephen Orr Spurrier (SOS) came to his alma mater's rescue and made Gator football a blast for everybody involved -- the players who played for him; the fans who rooted for him; the TV audience who watched him and, yes, us "media boys" who were lucky enough to cover him.
Bianchi's No. 2 career highlight: That's him up high, Ron Kaspriske (left) and Matt Hayes (right) in the middle, and me down low. Not the furry, white one. That's UGA IV. This was that memorable, once-in-a-lifetime (if that) trip "Between the Hedges" (circa 1995) when the Gators handed the Bulldogs the worst home loss in school history, 52-17, at Sanford Stadium in Athens, Ga.
Steve Spurrier is my favorite coach-to-cover of all-time for one simple reason: He considered you family. Sometimes, you argued. He would nitpick little things, like when a writer gave the other team a 'coaching edge' in those antiquated matchup comparisons newspapers used to run. But sometimes being family meant good times. Consider the time in 1991 when Spurrier gave us access to Florida Field on a Sunday morning. It was a fun scrum -- old hacks vs. young hacks -- in flag football. Established beat writers like myself against young guns working for the Independent Florida Alligator or stringing for other publications. So we took our collective marginal talents to the field, much to the chagrin of the groundskeeper, who was used to bouncing students off the field on Sundays, the day after a home game. But he was taken aback when we stood our ground, defiant. "Take it up with the man upstairs!" one of us screamed. Shortly thereafter, The Man himself showed up. Steve Spurrier, party of one, watching a bad flag football game. Spurrier being Spurrier, it wasn't long before he started critiquing our game. "Greg Keller," he said after one infamous drop, referencing a former Gators tight end who played under Spurrier. None of us minded. We were, after all, family. Except for the groundskeeper. He was strangely silent the rest of the day. PS: We crushed the young hacks.
George's memory wouldn't pass the "Head Ball Coach" test. The above game was actually in 1992 (not '91) ... and we lost. Truth be told, Gregg Doyel (stringer for me then, columnist at The Indianapolis Star now) was really good that day. If you don't believe me, ask him. As for the rest? Two teams, too many "hacks" to list. As for Spurrier coming on the field to watch (and ridicule). Yes, absolutely.
SAM DOLSON Then: Student correspondent for Palm Beach Post Now: Senior Editor, Global Golf Post
Earlier this summer the AP crunched some numbers and listed UF in the top 10 programs for the 80 years it's published college football rankings. Given how firmly the Gators are lodged among the sport's blueblood class now (recent dips in results notwithstanding), it can be jarring when I relate to my kids and their friends that it wasn't that way when I first covered them in the 1980s. Then Steve Spurrier showed up in 1990 and shook things up, quickly and completely. Everything changed. In every way possible. Yes, the home jerseys went from orange to blue; and, yes, Florida Field went from plastic grass to natural turf, and the varsity "F" was painted at midfield. More than that, though, attitude changed. Eventually results too. During summer's preseason practices a main storyline was Shane Matthews taking control of the offense, but the overriding theme I remember was a new coach happy with the top-to-bottom talent he inherited. It's hard to remember now but there was this thinking when he got hired: "Yeah, sure, he won at Duke; will it transfer to the SEC?" But UF drubbed Oklahoma State for a decent first hint, then won their league opener in Tuscaloosa – a first Gator win there since Coach Ray Graves in '63 – and they were on their way. I swear I remember him saying pretty quickly in that first postgame: "Well ... Okie State's not very good." And I remember thinking to myself, "That's just him recognizing, 'This is a good win to get started but don't get carried away with it. Keep it in perspective.' " That's not the way, however, coaches said things before the Head Ball Coach came along. Game on, SEC. I wasn't a top writer then; mainly a backup guy for The Palm Beach Post and Gainesville Sun. But what I remember about Steve was he answered my questions like he did everyone else, and if he had a problem with something under my byline, he let me know about it like he did everyone else. Can't ask for much more than that. I was off the beat and editing by the time the national championship came around, but no worries. Back in the day, we dubbed ourselves "hacks." And most any hack who covered Steve Spurrier will tell you that was a ride worth taking.
SCOTT FOWLER Then:Miami Herald beat writer Now:Charlotte Observer sports columnist
In 1990, I was the Miami Herald's newly hired beat writer covering Florida. I already had some familiarity with Steve Spurrier since when he was at Duke he had orchestrated a 41-0 pounding of my alma mater, North Carolina, and had then taken a famous picture in front of the scoreboard in Chapel Hill in 1989. I didn't hold it against him. I loved his offense. When I was sitting in his office for one of our first interviews in Gainesville in August 1990, I noticed something. Spurrier was so proud of Duke's numbers in 1989 that he kept the "1989 Final ACC Statistics" in a small gold holder on his desk. I asked him about it, and he pointed out some of the relevant stats with glee. "Look here," Spurrier said, glancing at the statistics. "We had 501.7 total yards per game. We converted more than 50 percent of our third downs the past two years. We averaged nearly 28 first downs a game." Of course, Spurrier was about to do exactly the same thing at Florida, to the delight of Gator fans everywhere. I remember one other thing he said in that interview that was prescient. We were talking about how most college teams still ran the ball most of the time. Said the coach: "People ask me a lot now, 'Why doesn't a team just run a two-minute offense the entire game? They seem to be so successful.' And I say, 'Have you ever seen my teams play?' "
FRANK FRANGIE Then: Florida Times-Union beat writer Now: Afternoon Drive Talk Show Host (1010XL-AM/92.5 FM)
This guy's not afraid. That is the first thing I thought back on Dec. 31, 1989, when I watched Steve Spurrier stand at the podium and accept the coaching job at the University of Florida. I was a bit sick – awful head cold – and had just caught a red-eye from Los Angeles, took a quick shower, and raced from Jacksonville to Gainesville to make the presser. I was on the left coast to cover the Gators' embarrassingly bad 34-7 loss to Washington in some awful bowl called the Freedom Bowl. So I needed something to get my attention. The boldness of his address did the trick. He wasn't afraid. He wanted to start playing Miami again, the team that had beaten Florida seven of the last 10 matchups before the Gators dropped the annual series two years earlier. And he couldn't wait to take on Georgia, the team that had won 13 of the previous 16 against UF and generally had tormented the Gators for even more years than that. In fact, he couldn't wait to sort of poke the bulldog. In response to the fact that some Gator fans wanted the game home and home to give them a better chance, Spurrier essentially said it's an hour drive for us, a flight for them; it's in Florida, in a stadium called the "Gator" Bowl. Point was, he believed UF clearly had the advantage and should be the hammer, not the nail. Gator fans loved it. I just kept thinking, man, this guy's not afraid. Well, the rest is history. Florida was about to add Miami back to the schedule until the SEC went to eight league games, ending that possibility. But about that Georgia thing? Spurrier's Gators, as most know, beat a team that previously had been dominating the series 11 out of 12 times. The truth is, he was never afraid. Wasn't afraid to go for it on fourth down from his own territory. Wasn't afraid to pass when others would have run. Wasn't afraid to design bizarre formations (Emory and Henry, anyone?). Wasn't afraid to do things a different way, his way, regardless of how others would have done it. One of the reasons he won six official (and one unofficial) SEC titles and a national championship at Florida. I asked him one time about his boldness and at times risky decisions. He said, "Frank, I'll tell you one thing, I'm not ever going to not do something because I'm afraid of the criticism if it doesn't work." I never forgot that. Maybe because of my first impression of that new Florida coach. The guy who just wasn't afraid.
This was the game we actually did win: 1990 against the sports information staff (not invited for the picture). Frank, armed with his orange Gatorade, was pretty good in the pocket that day. That's Sharon Ginn, St. Petersburg Times stringer, in the lower right. When Sharon was around, Spurrier always said, "OK media boys -- and Sharon!" She had a couple sacks for the hacks that day.
RON KASPRISKE Then: Student correspondent for Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel Now: Senior Editor, Golf Digest
The run-up to Steve Spurrier's first season with the Gators was almost as entertaining as watching what his offense turned out to be in 1990. I was sports editor of The Alligator at the time, and still can hear his voice answering questions about the "quarterback situation." Everyone wanted to know who was going to start, and it became part of the daily conversation at practices that August. Shane Matthews seemed to have won the job convincingly, but if you listened to Steve talk about it, you would have thought he was deciding between Peyton Manning and Tom Brady. Typical response to asking who would start: "Shane looked good … Kyle [Morris] looked good … Brian [Fox] looked good … Lex [Smith] looked good." Yadda, yadda. It got to the point where everyone who covered those practices would do an impersonation of Steve answering questions as ambiguously as possible. It wasn't hard. You just open every sentence with "Awwwwwww, well," and go from there.
BILL KING Then:Gainesville Sun beat writer Now: Senior Writer, Sports Business Journal
So many moments from that first Spurrier season still stand out for me but, to be honest, the opener isn't one of them. The Gators scored a bushel of points against an overmatched opponent, something they had done many times before. If you lived Florida football in the 60s, that opener probably meant loads to you. To see Spurrier, and that big blue "F" on a grass field; to have Florida light up the scoreboard; to see people cheer after two horrible, draining weeks in the wake of the serial killings – it made for a glorious homecoming, and a welcome respite from the sobering outside events. But none of us could have appreciated the way the program's culture was about to change, which, really, was Spurrier's sustaining gift to his alma mater. For me, the signature moment from that season came a week later in Tuscaloosa, when, trailing by 10-0 in the third quarter, they put together a long drive to pull within three, intercepted a pass on their own 2-yard line, completed a 70-yard bomb from out of the end zone to set up the tying field goal and scored the winning TD on a blocked punt. Spurrier reversed field on history that day. And things would never be the same.
Game Day program from Florida-Oklahoma State (Sept. 8, 1990)
ALEX MARVEZ Then: Student correspondent for Miami Herald and Tallahassee Democrat Now: Sporting News NFL columnist and SiriusXM NFL Radio host
As a young "hack" who didn't grow up in Gator culture, I failed to truly grasp how big a deal it was for Steve Spurrier to return as head coach. It didn't take long for me to find out. But what really stood out about the 1990 Gators debut game was what it meant for the university as a whole. The opener was being played in the wake of the Gainesville murders. The entire campus was saddened and on edge because of that horrific tragedy. Football can't fix something like that. But for almost four hours on a hot Saturday afternoon, the entire city received a respite from thinking about that tragedy to enjoy a "fun-and-gun" offensive explosion that marked a new era of Florida football. The excitement surrounding what Spurrier and the 1990 Gators were able to accomplish helped our school's healing process while laying the groundwork for the success that would follow.
PAT McMANAMON Then: Palm Beach Post beat writer Now: Cleveland Browns beat writer, ESPN NFL Nation
A few experiences from my only season of covering Steve Spurrier in that first year at Florida come to mind. The first came in March, when Spurrier was in West Palm Beach to speak at the Palm Beach County Gator Boosters gathering. He graciously met with me before the event, then gave a stirring speech to a packed house. At the end, he asked everyone to put their arms together and sway and sing "We are the Boys of Ol' Florida." For a kid raised in Ohio, this was quite a sight. When the song ended, I went to thank Spurrier and say good night. Holding a Budweiser and sporting that cherubic smile, he looked and said, "Hey Pat, did you sing with us? That's such a good song. Such a good song." I walked out realizing Florida had hired a true Gator. In late July, the media and coaches were in Birmingham for the annual SEC media days. The hotel connected to a mall, and as I walked toward the hotel Spurrier and Gator historian/longtime friend Norm Carlson walked past me. We all greeted each other as we walked, but after Spurrier and Carlson were a few feet past, Spurrier said loud enough for me and many to hear: "How do you pronounced that name Norm? McMana ... MacMan .... MacManahan. Oh that's a hard name, Norm. That's a hard name." I realized then I'd be covering a character. The next came during games, when a young receiver late in a blowout win could not catch up to a corner throw in the end zone. At the postgame press conference Spurrier talked about the play. "He told me he got held a little bit coming out of his break," Spurrier said. After a second he added: "I told him if he wanted to get the ball, he wouldn't let himself be held." The player didn't see the field for a month. That short football lessons remains with me as I cover the NFL. The last came a while later, when Spurrier had just joined the Washington Redskins as coach in 2002. At the NFL owners meetings, I greeted him, and he asked which year I had covered the Gators. I told him his first year, and he immediately said: "That's the one they took away from us." Meaning of course the SEC title he still felt Florida deserved. Evidently a Gator never forgets.
DAVID STIRT Then: Editor-Publisher of Gator Bait Now: President, Florida Sports News, Inc.
By the time Steve Spurrier showed up in Birmingham for his first SEC Media Days event in July 1990, he had already drawn record crowds at a bunch of Gator Gatherings around the state of Florida. While Spurrier put on a happy face when it came time to mingle with the Gator faithful at each stop, what made the Gator tour tolerable for him was the chance to play golf in the afternoon tournaments that usually preceded the evening dinner rally where he spoke and handed out autographs to his adoring fans. It was no surprise that at the majority of the stops during the Gator tour, Spurrier's team won the golf tournament. Spurrier was (and may still be) a very good golfer and in 1990 he was playing at a 3-handicap, so when he was grouped with at least one or two other low handicap or scratch golfers, he became part of a nearly unbeatable team. Since I was trying to sell Gator Bait subscriptions, I attended most of these events, and I occasionally played in some of the golf tournaments, happily hacking around the course, with a few of my shots helping my foursome finish in the middle of the final team standings. So now you can understand the horror I felt when I was warming up on the putting green in Birmingham and longtime UF sports information director Norm Carlson informed me that he had convinced the tournament director to put me in Spurrier's foursome for the SEC Media Days golf tournament. Norm thought he was doing me a favor, giving me the chance to spend a few hours with Spurrier in what should have been a relaxed, social atmosphere so I could get to know the new coach on a more personal basis. I knew how badly Spurrier would want to win his first tournament playing against other SEC football coaches and loads of media members, so I considered Norm's "favor" a disaster waiting to happen. Once Spurrier saw me hit a golf ball, any respect I might hope to gain with my journalistic skills would be forever buried beneath his bad memories of me costing him a chance to win a golf tournament. I thanked Norm for thinking of me, but urged him to replace me with another media member who probably didn't know what I knew about Spurrier's competitive nature. Norm understood where I was coming from and did get me moved to another foursome. I remember having a delightful afternoon playing golf with Mississippi State head coach Rockey Felker, who it turned out was playing in his final SEC Media Days tournament (he was replaced by Jackie Sherrill after going 5-6 that season). I also remember the scene outside the clubhouse at the conclusion of the golf tournament, when Spurrier was griping to Norm about the lousy golfers in his group who had cost him a chance to win the tournament. I don't remember who those chumps were, but I was ecstatic I wasn't one of them. Oh yeah, two weeks later Spurrier finished fourth in the $400,000 Celebrity Golf Classic in Lake Tahoe, Nev., where then-NFL quarterback Mark Rypien won the $75,000 first prize. Spurrier, who wore an orange-and-blue colored outfit, shot 76-74-75 for the three rounds on the par 72 course and took home a nice chunk of change, a far better outcome than having to play with us hacks in Birmingham.
We were a mostly tight group of "hacks." We worked really hard, hell-bent on breaking news. We woke up each morning and headed to the nearest corner lined with newspaper racks and slammed five or six quarters into the boxes to compare headlines. If you had a scoop, you understood it was good for one day only. If you got beat (and we all did sometimes), you tried to make up for it that day. When the day was over, there was a good chance you'd be sharing a beer at the chosen local waterhole. 
When I think of Steve Spurrier, one of the first things that always pops into my mind is Georgia. I know, that sounds a little strange, but let me explain. One of the earliest memories I have of Spurrier is him getting beat up badly by a relentless Georgia pass rush in that 1966 loss that cost the Gators a chance to win their first SEC title. I think the memory of that game has always remained fresh for the HBC as well. For Spurrier, the coach, I think it's always gone back to that bad day in the Gator Bowl. During his first press conference after taking the job at his alma mater, he mentioned Georgia early, saying beating the Bulldogs would be a priority. He then went on to give the reasons why Florida should win that rivalry game: it's played in the state of Florida, in the Gator Bowl, the Bulldogs had to get on a plane and the Gators only had to hop on a bus. It made perfect sense, and the Gators, who stumbled so often in big games against the Dogs, bought in -- players and fans alike. Spurrier and the Gators then went out and completely changed the rivalry's culture, starting with the first two games -- 38-7 and 45-13 routs of Georgia. Then came the game and the outcome that really got under the Bulldogs' skin: the 1992 game that saw the Gators pull the 26-24 upset that led to UF winning the SEC East and going on to play in the first SEC Championship Game. In that '92 game in Jacksonville, the Gators did to the Bulldogs what the Bulldogs so often used to do to the Gators -- wreck their championship hopes with an almost inexplicable upset. Spurrier got so deep inside the Bulldogs' heads that the Gators would end up going 11-1 in the rivalry under the HBC. That's why I always think about Georgia when I think back to the early days of Spurrier.
This is going to be fun. Fun 'N' Gun. That was my first thought back in 1990 when I covered Steve Spurrier's first game at the University of Florida; when he brought his space-age offense to the stone-age Southeastern Conference and began "pitching it around the ballpark" to wide-open receivers who literally did back flips in the end zone after catching all those TD passes. That's when I wrote that a revolutionary new offense — "the Fun 'N' Gun" — had been born. Coining the name of Spurrier's trail-blazing offense is still perhaps the highlight of my sportswriting career – right up there with getting my picture taken with UGA the Bulldog and Chris Harry on the field in Athens, Ga., after Spurrier's Gators had buried Georgia yet again. After a lifetime of the Gators being the SEC's most laughable underachievers and following a decade of NCAA violations, investigations and consequent probations, Spurrier came home in 1990 and made it all disappear in a blissful blur of exciting, exhilarating, swaggering, swashbuckling football. He made college football colorful and entertaining – on and off the field. Obviously he had a multi-faceted legacy that included UF's first Heisman Trophy, first SEC Championship and first national title. This is all very important stuff, but not nearly as important as his most lasting contribution to Florida football: Fun. Stephen Orr Spurrier (SOS) came to his alma mater's rescue and made Gator football a blast for everybody involved -- the players who played for him; the fans who rooted for him; the TV audience who watched him and, yes, us "media boys" who were lucky enough to cover him.
Steve Spurrier is my favorite coach-to-cover of all-time for one simple reason: He considered you family. Sometimes, you argued. He would nitpick little things, like when a writer gave the other team a 'coaching edge' in those antiquated matchup comparisons newspapers used to run. But sometimes being family meant good times. Consider the time in 1991 when Spurrier gave us access to Florida Field on a Sunday morning. It was a fun scrum -- old hacks vs. young hacks -- in flag football. Established beat writers like myself against young guns working for the Independent Florida Alligator or stringing for other publications. So we took our collective marginal talents to the field, much to the chagrin of the groundskeeper, who was used to bouncing students off the field on Sundays, the day after a home game. But he was taken aback when we stood our ground, defiant. "Take it up with the man upstairs!" one of us screamed. Shortly thereafter, The Man himself showed up. Steve Spurrier, party of one, watching a bad flag football game. Spurrier being Spurrier, it wasn't long before he started critiquing our game. "Greg Keller," he said after one infamous drop, referencing a former Gators tight end who played under Spurrier. None of us minded. We were, after all, family. Except for the groundskeeper. He was strangely silent the rest of the day. PS: We crushed the young hacks.
Earlier this summer the AP crunched some numbers and listed UF in the top 10 programs for the 80 years it's published college football rankings. Given how firmly the Gators are lodged among the sport's blueblood class now (recent dips in results notwithstanding), it can be jarring when I relate to my kids and their friends that it wasn't that way when I first covered them in the 1980s. Then Steve Spurrier showed up in 1990 and shook things up, quickly and completely. Everything changed. In every way possible. Yes, the home jerseys went from orange to blue; and, yes, Florida Field went from plastic grass to natural turf, and the varsity "F" was painted at midfield. More than that, though, attitude changed. Eventually results too. During summer's preseason practices a main storyline was Shane Matthews taking control of the offense, but the overriding theme I remember was a new coach happy with the top-to-bottom talent he inherited. It's hard to remember now but there was this thinking when he got hired: "Yeah, sure, he won at Duke; will it transfer to the SEC?" But UF drubbed Oklahoma State for a decent first hint, then won their league opener in Tuscaloosa – a first Gator win there since Coach Ray Graves in '63 – and they were on their way. I swear I remember him saying pretty quickly in that first postgame: "Well ... Okie State's not very good." And I remember thinking to myself, "That's just him recognizing, 'This is a good win to get started but don't get carried away with it. Keep it in perspective.' " That's not the way, however, coaches said things before the Head Ball Coach came along. Game on, SEC. I wasn't a top writer then; mainly a backup guy for The Palm Beach Post and Gainesville Sun. But what I remember about Steve was he answered my questions like he did everyone else, and if he had a problem with something under my byline, he let me know about it like he did everyone else. Can't ask for much more than that. I was off the beat and editing by the time the national championship came around, but no worries. Back in the day, we dubbed ourselves "hacks." And most any hack who covered Steve Spurrier will tell you that was a ride worth taking.
In 1990, I was the Miami Herald's newly hired beat writer covering Florida. I already had some familiarity with Steve Spurrier since when he was at Duke he had orchestrated a 41-0 pounding of my alma mater, North Carolina, and had then taken a famous picture in front of the scoreboard in Chapel Hill in 1989. I didn't hold it against him. I loved his offense. When I was sitting in his office for one of our first interviews in Gainesville in August 1990, I noticed something. Spurrier was so proud of Duke's numbers in 1989 that he kept the "1989 Final ACC Statistics" in a small gold holder on his desk. I asked him about it, and he pointed out some of the relevant stats with glee. "Look here," Spurrier said, glancing at the statistics. "We had 501.7 total yards per game. We converted more than 50 percent of our third downs the past two years. We averaged nearly 28 first downs a game." Of course, Spurrier was about to do exactly the same thing at Florida, to the delight of Gator fans everywhere. I remember one other thing he said in that interview that was prescient. We were talking about how most college teams still ran the ball most of the time. Said the coach: "People ask me a lot now, 'Why doesn't a team just run a two-minute offense the entire game? They seem to be so successful.' And I say, 'Have you ever seen my teams play?' "
This guy's not afraid. That is the first thing I thought back on Dec. 31, 1989, when I watched Steve Spurrier stand at the podium and accept the coaching job at the University of Florida. I was a bit sick – awful head cold – and had just caught a red-eye from Los Angeles, took a quick shower, and raced from Jacksonville to Gainesville to make the presser. I was on the left coast to cover the Gators' embarrassingly bad 34-7 loss to Washington in some awful bowl called the Freedom Bowl. So I needed something to get my attention. The boldness of his address did the trick. He wasn't afraid. He wanted to start playing Miami again, the team that had beaten Florida seven of the last 10 matchups before the Gators dropped the annual series two years earlier. And he couldn't wait to take on Georgia, the team that had won 13 of the previous 16 against UF and generally had tormented the Gators for even more years than that. In fact, he couldn't wait to sort of poke the bulldog. In response to the fact that some Gator fans wanted the game home and home to give them a better chance, Spurrier essentially said it's an hour drive for us, a flight for them; it's in Florida, in a stadium called the "Gator" Bowl. Point was, he believed UF clearly had the advantage and should be the hammer, not the nail. Gator fans loved it. I just kept thinking, man, this guy's not afraid. Well, the rest is history. Florida was about to add Miami back to the schedule until the SEC went to eight league games, ending that possibility. But about that Georgia thing? Spurrier's Gators, as most know, beat a team that previously had been dominating the series 11 out of 12 times. The truth is, he was never afraid. Wasn't afraid to go for it on fourth down from his own territory. Wasn't afraid to pass when others would have run. Wasn't afraid to design bizarre formations (Emory and Henry, anyone?). Wasn't afraid to do things a different way, his way, regardless of how others would have done it. One of the reasons he won six official (and one unofficial) SEC titles and a national championship at Florida. I asked him one time about his boldness and at times risky decisions. He said, "Frank, I'll tell you one thing, I'm not ever going to not do something because I'm afraid of the criticism if it doesn't work." I never forgot that. Maybe because of my first impression of that new Florida coach. The guy who just wasn't afraid. 
The run-up to Steve Spurrier's first season with the Gators was almost as entertaining as watching what his offense turned out to be in 1990. I was sports editor of The Alligator at the time, and still can hear his voice answering questions about the "quarterback situation." Everyone wanted to know who was going to start, and it became part of the daily conversation at practices that August. Shane Matthews seemed to have won the job convincingly, but if you listened to Steve talk about it, you would have thought he was deciding between Peyton Manning and Tom Brady. Typical response to asking who would start: "Shane looked good … Kyle [Morris] looked good … Brian [Fox] looked good … Lex [Smith] looked good." Yadda, yadda. It got to the point where everyone who covered those practices would do an impersonation of Steve answering questions as ambiguously as possible. It wasn't hard. You just open every sentence with "Awwwwwww, well," and go from there. 
So many moments from that first Spurrier season still stand out for me but, to be honest, the opener isn't one of them. The Gators scored a bushel of points against an overmatched opponent, something they had done many times before. If you lived Florida football in the 60s, that opener probably meant loads to you. To see Spurrier, and that big blue "F" on a grass field; to have Florida light up the scoreboard; to see people cheer after two horrible, draining weeks in the wake of the serial killings – it made for a glorious homecoming, and a welcome respite from the sobering outside events. But none of us could have appreciated the way the program's culture was about to change, which, really, was Spurrier's sustaining gift to his alma mater. For me, the signature moment from that season came a week later in Tuscaloosa, when, trailing by 10-0 in the third quarter, they put together a long drive to pull within three, intercepted a pass on their own 2-yard line, completed a 70-yard bomb from out of the end zone to set up the tying field goal and scored the winning TD on a blocked punt. Spurrier reversed field on history that day. And things would never be the same.
As a young "hack" who didn't grow up in Gator culture, I failed to truly grasp how big a deal it was for Steve Spurrier to return as head coach. It didn't take long for me to find out. But what really stood out about the 1990 Gators debut game was what it meant for the university as a whole. The opener was being played in the wake of the Gainesville murders. The entire campus was saddened and on edge because of that horrific tragedy. Football can't fix something like that. But for almost four hours on a hot Saturday afternoon, the entire city received a respite from thinking about that tragedy to enjoy a "fun-and-gun" offensive explosion that marked a new era of Florida football. The excitement surrounding what Spurrier and the 1990 Gators were able to accomplish helped our school's healing process while laying the groundwork for the success that would follow.
A few experiences from my only season of covering Steve Spurrier in that first year at Florida come to mind. The first came in March, when Spurrier was in West Palm Beach to speak at the Palm Beach County Gator Boosters gathering. He graciously met with me before the event, then gave a stirring speech to a packed house. At the end, he asked everyone to put their arms together and sway and sing "We are the Boys of Ol' Florida." For a kid raised in Ohio, this was quite a sight. When the song ended, I went to thank Spurrier and say good night. Holding a Budweiser and sporting that cherubic smile, he looked and said, "Hey Pat, did you sing with us? That's such a good song. Such a good song." I walked out realizing Florida had hired a true Gator. In late July, the media and coaches were in Birmingham for the annual SEC media days. The hotel connected to a mall, and as I walked toward the hotel Spurrier and Gator historian/longtime friend Norm Carlson walked past me. We all greeted each other as we walked, but after Spurrier and Carlson were a few feet past, Spurrier said loud enough for me and many to hear: "How do you pronounced that name Norm? McMana ... MacMan .... MacManahan. Oh that's a hard name, Norm. That's a hard name." I realized then I'd be covering a character. The next came during games, when a young receiver late in a blowout win could not catch up to a corner throw in the end zone. At the postgame press conference Spurrier talked about the play. "He told me he got held a little bit coming out of his break," Spurrier said. After a second he added: "I told him if he wanted to get the ball, he wouldn't let himself be held." The player didn't see the field for a month. That short football lessons remains with me as I cover the NFL. The last came a while later, when Spurrier had just joined the Washington Redskins as coach in 2002. At the NFL owners meetings, I greeted him, and he asked which year I had covered the Gators. I told him his first year, and he immediately said: "That's the one they took away from us." Meaning of course the SEC title he still felt Florida deserved. Evidently a Gator never forgets.
By the time Steve Spurrier showed up in Birmingham for his first SEC Media Days event in July 1990, he had already drawn record crowds at a bunch of Gator Gatherings around the state of Florida. While Spurrier put on a happy face when it came time to mingle with the Gator faithful at each stop, what made the Gator tour tolerable for him was the chance to play golf in the afternoon tournaments that usually preceded the evening dinner rally where he spoke and handed out autographs to his adoring fans. It was no surprise that at the majority of the stops during the Gator tour, Spurrier's team won the golf tournament. Spurrier was (and may still be) a very good golfer and in 1990 he was playing at a 3-handicap, so when he was grouped with at least one or two other low handicap or scratch golfers, he became part of a nearly unbeatable team. Since I was trying to sell Gator Bait subscriptions, I attended most of these events, and I occasionally played in some of the golf tournaments, happily hacking around the course, with a few of my shots helping my foursome finish in the middle of the final team standings. So now you can understand the horror I felt when I was warming up on the putting green in Birmingham and longtime UF sports information director Norm Carlson informed me that he had convinced the tournament director to put me in Spurrier's foursome for the SEC Media Days golf tournament. Norm thought he was doing me a favor, giving me the chance to spend a few hours with Spurrier in what should have been a relaxed, social atmosphere so I could get to know the new coach on a more personal basis. I knew how badly Spurrier would want to win his first tournament playing against other SEC football coaches and loads of media members, so I considered Norm's "favor" a disaster waiting to happen. Once Spurrier saw me hit a golf ball, any respect I might hope to gain with my journalistic skills would be forever buried beneath his bad memories of me costing him a chance to win a golf tournament. I thanked Norm for thinking of me, but urged him to replace me with another media member who probably didn't know what I knew about Spurrier's competitive nature. Norm understood where I was coming from and did get me moved to another foursome. I remember having a delightful afternoon playing golf with Mississippi State head coach Rockey Felker, who it turned out was playing in his final SEC Media Days tournament (he was replaced by Jackie Sherrill after going 5-6 that season). I also remember the scene outside the clubhouse at the conclusion of the golf tournament, when Spurrier was griping to Norm about the lousy golfers in his group who had cost him a chance to win the tournament. I don't remember who those chumps were, but I was ecstatic I wasn't one of them. Oh yeah, two weeks later Spurrier finished fourth in the $400,000 Celebrity Golf Classic in Lake Tahoe, Nev., where then-NFL quarterback Mark Rypien won the $75,000 first prize. Spurrier, who wore an orange-and-blue colored outfit, shot 76-74-75 for the three rounds on the par 72 course and took home a nice chunk of change, a far better outcome than having to play with us hacks in Birmingham.
