WP:Some Glad, Some Not Spurrier Leaving

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43001-2003Dec30.html

Some Glad, Some Not Spurrier Leaving

Reactions From Fans Vary, but All Agree Troubled Redskins Need Some Help

By David Nakamura and Rosalind S. Helderman

Washington Post Staff Writers

Wednesday, December 31, 2003; Page A12

Washington Redskins fan Andy DeVany, decked out in his burgundy No. 78 Bruce Smith jersey, cheered as if it were a football Sunday as he watched images of Steve Spurrier roll across television screens at ESPN Zone yesterday.

Only this time it wasn't a stellar play that got his juices flowing: it was the bulletin that Spurrier had resigned as head coach after two seasons.

"It's great news," said Andy, 14, a ninth-grader at Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda who was lunching with his family at the sports bar in Northwest Washington. "I don't like Spurrier. He runs a bunch of crazy plays. The season was a disappointment. I predicted we'd go 6-10, and we didn't even do that well."

Andy's father, Dennis, a life-long Redskins fan, added that Sundays in the DeVany household have been painful this season. "I think he got in over his head and was not ready for how hard it was going to be," Dennis DeVany said of Spurrier.

From celebratory to smug, Redskins fans across the Washington region did not mince words when reacting to Spurrier's departure after a 5-11 season and a 12-20 record overall.

At Largo One Barbershop, from which one can see FedEx Field, barber Charles Sanders was disgusted.

"Spurrier is a coward for quitting," said Sanders, 21. "He can't win the Super Bowl overnight. He should have stuck with it."

As it happened, Sanders was cutting the hair of Christopher Busey, 19, a sophomore at the University of Florida who said he unsuccessfully tried out for the Gators football team as a walk-on after Spurrier had departed for the Redskins.

"He needs to stay somewhere and build up a program," Busey said of Spurrier. "You can't always leave when things don't go your way."

As excited as they may have been upon the announcement in January 2002 that team owner Daniel Snyder had hired Spurrier away from Florida, some fans sounded almost relieved that the ball coach would not be back for a third season.

"The way he talked about his players made it seem like it was everyone's fault but his," said Julie Crim, 35, while leaving the Giant grocery store in Leesburg after shopping for a New Year's Eve party. She said she had hoped Spurrier would prove that a college football coach could succeed in the NFL, but "instead he acted like a college kid."

Then again, many fans faulted Snyder, not Spurrier, for the Redskins' miseries. The team is searching for its fifth head coach in four seasons, and some argue that the owner meddles too much for any coach to be successful.

"I blame Snyder," said Loudoun County sheriff's Deputy Ed Pifer. "If Snyder would just sit back and collect the money and enjoy himself, that team would be better off. . . . I don't think he knows a lot about football."

Chris Selden, 28, of Fort Washington, a season-ticket holder, said that "Spurrier has a big ego and Snyder has a big ego also. Having two big egos under the same organization is like oil and water. Someone had to go."

John Faith, 40, a Washington financial adviser, waited 25 years to get season tickets to the Redskins. He and his family got on the waiting list in 1972 and didn't get seats until 1997. But the team was so bad this year that he didn't bother attending the last two home games.

"I couldn't stand being surrounded by more Eagles and Cowboys fans than Redskins fans," he said. "I kind of live and breathe the Redskins, and it's been a real difficult stretch."

Longtime fan Terrence Brown, 20, of Leesburg, said Spurrier's college-style offense didn't fit in the NFL and predicted at least another five years before the team has a winning season.

"If you're a die-hard fan and you always cheer for them, it's hard," he said. "This year, they always lose by a couple of points. They always lose in the fourth quarter."

But Purcellville resident Carolyn Ecker, 58, who was sipping coffee at Leesburg's South Street Under, said she fully expects Spurrier to move on to another job -- and win big.

"As soon as players leave the Redskins, they go somewhere else and get really good," she said. "In my family, we say you can always count on the Redskins to let you down."

For others, who don't live and die with the fortunes of the burgundy-and-gold, the news simply meant another day of football headlines.

"I don't care. I don't care one iota. I wouldn't care if the Redskins just went away," said Jan Edmondson, 46, of Leesburg. "I hate football."

Staff writers Hamil R. Harris, Ian Shapira and Leef Smith contributed to this report.