Monday evening, Head Ball Coach Steve Spurrier became former Head Ball Coach Steve Spurrier.
He will understandably be missed on the football team. He has an excellent record on a variety of different teams that need not be detailed here. His departure has led to a recruit decommitting, and the team will need to band together under leadership to finish the season.
But Spurrier’s legacy and icon status surpass his importance on the field. For those more than anything else, he will be missed.
The university is a large SEC school. Football was always going to be, and always has been, held highly in the hearts of students. But for a long time they had nothing particularly impressive to celebrate. Then Spurrier came. While winning isn’t everything, it can instill pride and certainly feels better than losing.
More importantly, the school’s team operated at the highest levels of national play. This put the team, and the university, in the national spotlight and brought additional attention to the institution as a whole. Indeed, Spurrier’s resignation appeared on the front pages of not only ESPN.com and other sports sites, but also the websites of Fox News, ABC News and NBC news, among others. It was treated like a top national story.
More locally, Spurrier was an icon. His name recognition among students is nigh-universal and a banner of him adorns the stadium. Spurrier was the highest-paid state employee and few students ever found anything wrong with it. Even his enemies found him honest. After his resignation, statements of support and admiration are pouring in from those who played and worked for him — even those currently working for other teams.
With no football coach or player rivaling his stature, the cult of personality around the game might simmer down for some time. But in the end, someone else will take that place. Seasons go on and classes enter and graduate with the passage of time. Even so, Spurrier’s legacy will remain. We hope that Spurrier's replacement has his integrity and determination, and that he or she can inspire USC in the same way.