Honest Open Letter from Steve Spurrier

Dec 1, 2015, 8:31 PM

Deer Gamecocks,

In the last few years when asked how much longer I plan to coach, I have said often that if our team is going in the wrong direction I will leave you faster than a toupee in a hurricane. After six games, we were 2-4 with two blow-outs by Georgia and LSU. We were behind at halftime against UCF (a team that went 0-12 this year). We were definitely going in the wrong direction. I felt that my players were doing a lousy job and a change would help me lower my handicap.

I told our team after I resigned that they needed new leadership, new enthusiasm and a new plan. By stepping aside, this allowed Shawn Elliott the opportunity to lose 5 of the last 6 games, thus preserving my legacy by avoiding the 3-9 record.

I certainly believe, as the media has said, that our team played better after I resigned. Shawn Elliott did an excellent job getting this team prepared to play with enthusiasm and effort the rest of our season. Holy crap, I just read those last two sentences and can't stop laughing!!!

When I mentioned I may coach again, I meant possibly as a volunteer coach at a high school. The only school that would be dumb enough to pay me to coach, is the one I just left.

I understand the critics have asked why I didn’t announce I was retiring at the end of the season, as some other coaches have done. I felt that if I had done this, I would have been a distraction throughout the remainder of the season about my last game everywhere I went. I did not want a “Spurrier Farewell Tour.” Shawn Elliott and the players deserve to be the story of each game, not the fact that I put together this joke of a team.

When a coach gets fired, the change is often good and helpful to the team. Miami was 4-3 when Al Golden was fired, and the interim head coach went 4-1. Randy Edsall was 2-4 at Maryland when fired and his replacement got the team playing better. Clay Helton, the interim coach at the other USC, was recently named head coach as they went 5-2 under his watch. None of those scenarios played out at South Carolina and with the shape I left them in, they may very well have to hire Shawn Elliott.

Our university didn't have the balls to fire me, so I thought it was best for me that I basically leave them holding their Gamecocks. The players have enjoyed playing for Coach Elliott and again the media has said the team has performed better after I resigned, at least that's what I hear. I haven't watched a game.

Thanks to all Gamecocks for paying me handsomely to be your coach for over ten years while only doing five years worth of work. My wife Jerri is ecstatic to finally be leaving the University of South Carolina for retirement in Florida.

Sincerely,

Stephen Orr Spurrier
University of Florida's National Championship winning coach.

flag link

military_tech

thumb_down