Hall of Fame, Part 2: Spurrier Legacy Just Keeps Growing
Monday, December 4, 2017 | Football, Chris Harry
Steve Spurrier and his family will celebrate his second induction into the College Football Hall of Fame in New York City this week.
"Ask Steve," she said. "His memory is much better than mine."
Better than most anybody's, actually.
"That's me and Bubba," Spurrier said of the picture, one of him standing next to his son, Steve Jr., both dressed in tuxedos. "Back then, it was all men. No women came. Black tie and a bunch of guys sitting around, smoking cigars."
Obviously, times have changed since 1986, but in some instances — very rare ones — history can repeat itself. It was in '86 that Spurrier, two decades removed from winning the Heisman Trophy for his quarterback exploits at Florida, was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame during that stag ceremony at the Waldorf Astoria.
At the time, Spurrier had never walked the sidelines as a head coach (much less had his name plastered on a stadium wall).
Fast forward to present day. On Tuesday night, Spurrier will be at the New York Hilton Midtown, with Jerri and family at his side, for the 60th National Football Foundation awards banquet. The glitzy, black-tie event will be a who's-who of college football dignitaries, with Peyton Manning, Marshall Faulk, Matt Leinart, Brian Urlacher and Danny Ford among the new members representing the 2017 Hall of Fame class.
Actually, 12 new and one repeat inductee.
Yes, 31 years after entering the Hall as a player, Spurrier will become the fourth to be enshrined as both a player and coach. Repeat: Just the fourth.
"Fourth ever!" former UF athletic directory Jeremy Foley said with the emphasis it deserves. "That's a long time."
Can anyone name the others?
"Amos Alonzo-Stagg, Bobby Dodd and Wyatt Bowden," Spurrier said, reeling them off instantly. "Yeah, to be one of four, I guess that makes me sort of a rare dude. Very few All-American players, much less Heisman guys, go on to become head coaches. But God has always kind of smiled on me and blessed me in a special way, starting with my path from Johnson City, Tennessee, to the University of Florida."
It's a story that all orange-and-blue-blooded fans (and many beyond) know backward and forward by now. But did you know Dodd actually recruited Spurrier some in the early '60s during his time at Georgia Tech? Or that Bowden (Wyatt, not Bobby) was head coach at Tennessee and had an eye on young Spurrier when he started a magnificent prep career as a football, basketball and baseball player at Science High in East Tennessee. Or that Spurrier counts a copy of Stagg's book — "Stagg University" — as a must for the office bookcase?
It's right there with photos of championships.
"Is this my best team ever? I won't know for another 20 or so years." -- Amos Alonzo Stagg
For Spurrier, now 72 and a grandfather of 14, his achievements in his post-playing career have always carried more personal meaning for the simple reason they impacted more people. Players can take a bow for their statistics, but teams (and that means coaches, players, administrators, wives, family and friends) can celebrate victories and championships together and with their fans.
It's because of a bunch of those championships — and a career record of 228-88-2 — that some 250 people near and dear to Spurrier will be in New York for an induction eve party Monday night to toast the momentous occasion. Florida, Duke, South Carolina and Johnson City will be well represented.
"This will be fun," Foley said. "That's the thing about Steve ... he always had fun. And his teams had fun."
At Duke, he led the Blue Devils to their first Atlantic Coast Conference title since 1962. At a school known for basketball, offense was dubbed "Air Ball." At Florida, he created a Southeastern Conference monster, turning the league on its head with the vaunted "Fun-N-Gun" and run of championships (six SEC, plus one national) over 12 seasons that shook the region like no coach since Paul "Bear" Bryant.
Current UF athletic director Scott Stricklin was a junior at Mississippi State when Spurrier returned to Florida. Stricklin knew very little about the new Florida coach, then 45, other than his success at Duke and that he was an alum.
Like everyone else in the SEC, Stricklin took quick notice. The label Florida wore as habitual underachiever, with zero league titles to its name, soon vanished.
"When Coach Spurrier went to Gainesville the tectonic plates shifted. Everyone was chasing the Gators for about a decade after that," Stricklin said. "Nothing about the way they started dominating the SEC was traditional. It wasn't three yards and a cloud of dust. And his personality was on display all the time. Everyone wanted to know what he was going to say next."
Said Foley: "It was an exciting time, I can tell you that. The favorite son came home and nothing was the same; not here, not in the SEC."
It was 12 years of national relevance, exploding scoreboards and rewritten record books, with the 52-24 national-championship defeat of rival Florida State in the 1997 Sugar Bowl the highlight. For the Gators, it ended following the 2001 season when Spurrier chased his dream of taking a stab at the NFL that turned out to be short-lived.
After two seasons with the Washington Redskins, plus another as an unemployed ball coach, Spurrier returned to the college ranks in 2005, at South Carolina, a program with just five bowl appearances and one 10-win season in its history. Under Spurrier, the Gamecocks went to nine bowls, posted three straight 11-win seasons, and finished ranked fourth in the nation in 2013, before retiring in 2015.
The day Spurrier walked away, he joined Bryant (Alabama and Kentucky) as the only ones in SEC history to be the winningest coaches at two league schools.
"Very proud of that," he said.
Though a Gator through and through — Note: a television was requested for the banquet room Monday night so party-goers can watch the Florida-Florida State basketball game — Spurrier always has made sure to give each of his collegiate coaching stops their respective due.
And it started with Duke.
Spurrier finished his 10-year NFL career after the 1976 season with the expansion Tampa Bay Buccaneers. UF coach Doug Dickey gave Spurrier his first job as an assistant in '78, making him quarterbacks coach. Dickey and the staff were fired after the season.
Pepper Rodgers threw Spurrier a lifeline the following season, making him quarterbacks coach at Georgia Tech in 1979. With the Yellow Jackets, Spurrier was in charge of calling pass plays on third down. He went to Rodgers while the team was struggling midseason and said his third-down pass plays would work, but needed to be called first down. Rodgers relented and let Spurrier call all the plays the last four games of the season. Tech won three of them, including one against Duke.
Rodgers and his staff were fired after the '79 season, sending Spurrier looking for his third job in as many years. That Tech-Duke game, though, caught the eye of Blue Devils coach Red Wilson, who went looking for an offensive coordinator that same offseason and hired Spurrier.
That was the break the future "HBC" needed.
Spurrier remembers a fellow Tech staffer, running backs coach (and Pro Football Hall of Famer) Norm Van Brocklin, warning him about going to Duke. "You can't win there. Everybody there gets fired," Van Brocklin told him. "Get a job at Tennessee or Georgia or somewhere like that."
None of those places were calling.
So Spurrier, with a green light to be creative, brought a pass-happy, fun brand of football to Durham, where a California-bred quarterback named Ben Bennett became the NCAA's all-time passing leader. Spurrier's time at Duke eventually got him his first head coaching job, with the upstart USFL Tampa Bay Bandits, where his offenses went up and down the field in three entertaining seasons (all ending in the playoffs) before the league folded in 1986 and made Spurrier an unrestricted free agent.
Cal wouldn't hire him. Neither would LSU.
Duke came calling again in 1987, but this time to be head coach. In his third season, Spurrier and the Blue Devils won their first ACC crown in 27 years, then it was off to Florida.
And into SEC history.
"We developed a plan and how to do it at Duke, then I inherited a loaded team in 1990 and '91 and pretty soon we were taking pictures on the field after winning those championships," Spurrier said. "To me, those are the most special times as a coach."
Now, it's time to relive them on the doorstep of immortality.
For a second time.
CHARTING THE GATORS
They've been playing college football since 1872. That's 145 years. In that time, only three individuals have been inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame (established in 1951) as both a player and coach. Come Tuesday night, University of Florida icon Steve Spurrier will become the fourth. For context, meet the elite company the "HBC" will be keeping — for eternity.
AMOS ALONZO STAGGInducted as a player and coach in 1951 as part of the Hall's charter class. … Born Aug. 16, 1862 in West Orange, N.J., Stagg enrolled at Yale as a divinity student and played football as a secondary sport to baseball. … In 1888, Yale went 13-0 and outscored the opposition 698-0, playing for a team that featured three future fellow Hall-of-Famers: William Corbin, Pudge Heffelfinger and George Woodruff. … During his Yale career, the Bulldogs went 53-2-1 and Stagg was placed on the first All America team. … In 1890, Stagg got his first job as a head coach, and over the next 57 years went 314-195-35 at Springfield College (1890-91), University of Chicago (1892-1932) and Pacific (1933-46), touching the east, midwest and west, before settling in as an assistant for his son for five seasons at Susquehanna (1947-52), then as kicking coach at Stockton College (1953-58). ... Over the course of a career that lasted more than a half-century, Stagg was credited with inventing the end-around, hidden-ball trick, fake punt, quick-kick, man-in-motion, double reverse, the huddle, backfield shift, "Statue of Liberty" play, padded goal posts and putting numbers on players' backs. Said Notre Dame legend Knute Rockne: "All football comes from Stagg." … He died on March 17, 1965 in Stockton, Calif., at the age of 102.
BOBBY DODDInducted in as player in 1959 and coach in 1993. … Born Nov. 11, 1908 in Galax, Va., Dodd became a high school football, basketball and baseball star in Kingsport, Tenn.. He wasn't just an athlete, either. Along with a friend, Dodd won a city bridge tournament as a teen. … He enrolled at the University of Tennessee and played from 1928-30, as the Volunteers went 27-1-2 during his three seasons — Dodd ran, passed and kicked — as fans in Knoxville adopted the slogan, "In Dodd We Trust." … After his UT career, Dodd became an assistant coach at Georgia Tech in 1931 and remained in that post (under Bill Alexander) for 12 years, before taking over as head coach in 1945. In 22 seasons (1945-66) on his watch, the Yellow Jackets went 165-64-8, including a run of 31 straight games without a loss. Dodd guided Tech to eight bowl games and won them all. … After his coaching career, Dodd became athletic director at Georgia Tech. All told, he served the school for 57 years. … He died June 21, 1988 in Atlanta, at the age of 79.
WYATT BOWDENInducted as a player in 1951 and coach in 1972. … Born in Kingston, Tenn., on Oct. 4, 1917, Bowden was a fullback in high school, but once he arrived at UT in 1936, General Bob Neyland converted him to an end and defensive back. He started every game for three years, playing both ways, as the Volunteers went 23-5-3. In 1938, Bowden was All-American for the 11-0 UT squad that reached its first postseason game and defeated Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl. … After working as an assistant at Mississippi State, then serving as a lieutenant in the Navy during World War II, Bowden became head coach at Wyoming (1947-52), then Arkansas (1953-54) before returning to Tennessee for eight seasons (1955-62). ... All told, Bowden went 99-56-5 in 16 seasons as a head coach and won four league championships -- two with the Cowboys in the Skyline Conference, one with the Razorbacks in the Southwest, and the last with the 1956 Vols in the SEC. That '56 UT team went 10-1 and garnered Bowden national Coach of the Year honors. ... Bowden finished his career as an assistant for two seasons at Oklahoma State (1964-65). … He died Jan. 21, 1969 in Kingston at the age of 51.
STEVE SPURRIERInducted as a player in 1986 and as a coach in 2017. … Born April 15, 1945 in Miami Beach, the Spurrier family, led by its minister father, moved to Johnson City, Tenn., where Steve became a standout in football, basketball and baseball. Though recruited by the home state Vols and their single-wing offense, Spurrier wanted to play football at a place that threw it around and found the offense he was looking for with Coach Ray Graves and the University of Florida. He starred there from 1964-66. … Spurrier was named All American twice, including a unanimous choice in 1966, when he won the Heisman Trophy and led the Gators to just the second nine-win season in school history. His career numbers showed 392 completions, 4,848 yards and 36 touchdowns (all SEC records at the time), plus a punting average of 40.3 yards. ... Spurrier was drafted third overall by the San Francisco 49ers in 1967 and played 10 seasons in the NFL. … After short-lived assistant coaching jobs at UF and Georgia Tech, Spurrier was hired as offensive coordinator at Duke, then plucked from the college ranks to become head coach of the upstart USFL Tampa Bay Bandits. After the league folded in 1986, Spurrier was named head coach at Duke (1987-89), which he led to its first Atlantic Coast Conference title in 27 years, before leaving to return as coach of his alma mater at Florida. ... In 12 seasons with the Gators (1990-2001), Spurrier went 122-27-1, won six SEC championships, the 1996 national championship, appeared in 11 bowls and became the only Heisman winner ever to coach a Heisman winner (Danny Wuerffel in 1996). … In 2002, Spurrier left to coach two seasons with the NFL Washington Redskins before returning to the college ranks at South Carolina (2005-15), where he went 86-49 over 11 seasons, with five bowl wins and three 11-win seasons. … He retired in 2015 and joined Paul "Bear" Bryant as the only coaches in SEC history to have the most wins at two different league schools. … Spurrier, now 72, lives in Gainesville with his wife of 51 years, Jerri, and serves as an ambassador and consultant for the athletic department. In 2016, the UF football stadium was renamed "Steve Spurrier/Florida Field at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium."
-- CHRIS HARRY
Source: College Football Hall of Fame
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