NY Times:Steve Spurrier Still Fumbling in Yet Another Transition Year

[TK]

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/30/sports/football/30ROBE.html?ei=5062&en=8e4a6498f687e125&ex=1070773200&partner=GOOGLE&pagewanted=print&position=

Steve Spurrier Still Fumbling in Yet Another Transition Year

By SELENA ROBERTS

Published: November 30, 2003

HEY, let go of my ego! At one time, Steve Superior had an unapologetic vise grip on the horn he tooted as he publicly indulged in his own genius, wearing a visor like a belt to hold his vast knowledge in place.

On the field, the ball coach would order his Gators to cut off the heads of dandelions, like Vanderbilt, as if the object were to score enough points for a free night's stay.

Off the field, Steve Spurrier's inner child would dig at his cuddly elders, like Bobby Bowden, by proclaiming scandal-happy Florida State University as "Free Shoes U.."

For his pithiness, for his national championship, Spurrier was revered by anyone who enjoys clapping repetitively like an unhinged Gator. To everyone else, he was Stuck-up Steve.

Last week, there was a sassless serenity as Florida State and Florida prepared for their rivalry yesterday in a game that has lost the cackling stick to stir it for two years in the post-Spurrier era. "Lovely," Bowden told reporters last week. "Steve would have me irritated by now."

Really, the smartest boy in class is missed. But this is not about Spurrier's view of himself as the Picasso among finger painters in college coaching.

This is about how humility is an ill fit for a chosen few. As the Washington Redskins' baffled second-year coach, Spurrier has become the incredible shrinking rock star.

"We're all losers now," Spurrier said when summing up his team's collapse against the Dolphins last Sunday night.

"I benched myself," Spurrier said when he briefly handed the play calling to his offensive coordinator on Nov. 9 for his team's only victory in its last seven games.

Meekness has not turned Spurrier into a better coach. Instead, the former smarty-pants has morphed into a clueless Joe, a picture all too visible in his sideline stupor. Where is the visor toss? Where is the cranberry-red face? Where is the belittling of others? Where is the postgame strut to shake the hand of the opposing coach?

"I don't know how you can have a swagger at 7-9 last year and 4-7 right now," Pepper Rodgers, the Redskins' vice president, said in a telephone interview last Wednesday.

"It's hard to swagger at that."

The humble Steve must be hard to watch, if you are Rodgers. He is Spurrier's longtime friend, a relationship born when Rodgers was Florida's quarterbacks coach in 1963. That was Spurrier's freshman year.

"It's like losing a lot of money all at once," Rodgers said. "You don't walk around like you're rich when you're not. Steve can't walk around like he's got a winning record. Sure, his confidence is shaken, but anybody's would be right now."

Trouble is, a shaken Spurrier has given breath to a locker room of doubters. In the land of politics, his sound bites are debated, spliced and analyzed as closely as fine print. It's difficult to ignore Spurrier's uncharacteristic display of insecurity when it bubbles up through his every word.

If anything, players need to hear a coach in control, particularly one known for his ruthless confidence. Unthinkably, a thing called doubt could doom Spurrier in Washington.

A defeated Spurrier is not what the league needs. The N.F.L. should want Spurrier to succeed if only to provide ballast for Bill Parcells's lopsided sense of self, if only to re-establish a witty rival for the Cowboys' blond wiseguy.

Here's hoping it's not too late for Spurrier to rediscover the winning touch that made him intolerable. Here's hoping he returns to the insufferable dark side.

The siren call of college must be tempting for him, though. Wouldn't he be happier in his element, feted as Steve Savior again, free to grape-stomp the brainiacs at Vanderbilt?

The more the Redskins slide, the more the Fun 'n' Gun misfires, the more N.F.L. blitzes trample Spurrier's wizardry, the more speculation there is about the ball coach being lured away by North Carolina, or even Florida. (Nice having you, Ron Zook.)

"In my opinion, I don't think there is any chance he'll go back to college," Rodgers said. "I think he will fight through this."

He must fight in Spurrier style, though, with ego blazing, sure of his strategy, even if it's not the one he counted on when he arrived in Washington. After signing a five-year, $25 million deal, Spurrier talked boldly of his pass-happy system, living by a simple philosophy: chuck the dang ball down the field.

He was as naïve as he was arrogant. This year, as Spurrier admits, he has been "N.F.L.-ized" about using the run to set up the pass. That does not mean he cannot come up with another savvy blueprint, and do it without the help of the consultants whom Dan Snyder, the Redskins' owner, called upon this season.

How is that for a pinprick to a coach's confidence?

There are other coaches who would use humility to regroup, rethink and retool. To Spurrier, humility is a foreign substance that seems to have forced him into a re-evaluation of his daily affirmation: I am good enough, aren't I? People do like me, don't they?

Self-doubt does not become Spurrier. If he can muster it, he should revive his ****iness, if only to fool his players into believing in him, if only to convince himself that a 4-7 record in Year 2 is just a transition phase in his genius.

[Dr. D]

that about sums it up.

[Mad Mike]

What a load of crap.

[TheSkipper]

Sounds like ole Selena couldn't find anything to write about and slapped this crap in at the deadline..

[BCS:BraveCaringSoul]

Steve Spurrier Still Fumbling in Yet Another Transition Year

By SELENA ROBERTS

Don't give up your day job lady.

"Mistress" Selena hard at work on her day job.

[Chief skin]

WE STINK!!!! and as a result of Snyder's ownership are a laughing stock and are a legitamat target for every writer in the country, not to mention late night topics in a monologue.