Head Ball Coach has high hopes for South Carolina
COLUMBIA, S.C. — Steve Spurrier points to a box on the back wall of his office, the one that hangs about 10 feet from where his 1966 Heisman Trophy sits. “That’s from my first hole-in-one at Augusta National,” the South Carolina coach says, grinning. “It was just the par-3 course, though.”
After a visitor notes that the yardage chart on the enshrined scorecard from this past spring marks the distance of hole No. 7 distance at 115, Spurrier’s famous photographic memory — for golf shots and ball plays, at least — engages. “One-fifteen? It played longer than that,” he says. “Hit an 8-iron uphill against a little breeze. Played it for about 130.”
Later, Spurrier invites a second examination. “You see that ball?” he asks. In the spot where the average ball might bear an Ernst and Young logo are three words: HEAD BALL COACH. Spurrier has called himself the Head Ball Coach for years, and when his Florida teams dominated the SEC in the ’90s, that was the preferred nomenclature among his fans. Those who didn’t like him, and they usually lived near Athens, Ga., or Knoxville, Tenn., called Spurrier the evil genius, shiny pants, Darth Visor or any number of unprintable epithets.
si.com
8/28/08
