Failure is not an option

Expect Spurrier to succeed as an NFL coach

There is something about Steve Spurrier that evokes anger. Not just from opponents -- the hated Seminoles, the despised Volunteers -- but from neutral observers, too. People who know that I have covered Spurrier and spent time with him will approach me and ask, "Is that Spurrier as obnoxious as he looks?" This attitude isn't difficult to understand: Spurrier speaks his version of the truth in rooms full of media people. He throws tantrums on the sidelines. He is often, as his wife, Jeri, once told Sports Illustrated, "a brat."

Because of this, there has been a good deal of spirited chops-licking going on in the last week, as critics prepare for Spurrier to get his inevitable comeuppance in the NFL. (It should be noted that NFL GMs and owners are not among the wary; half a dozen of them are parked in Spurrier's driveway right now, trying to dump buckets of money on his front step.)

Criticism of Spurrier is fixated largely on his legendary work ethic, or lack thereof. He doesn't sleep on the couch in his office. (By the way, the last time I was in his office, the couch was covered with golf trophies; there wasn't room for even his dog to sleep on it.) He goes home after practice and eats dinner with his family. In this way, he is very, very different from your average football coach. When Oklahoma's Bob Stoops came over from Kansas State in 1996 to be Spurrier's defensive coordinator, he was stunned. At K-State, überworkaholic Bill Snyder would occasionally call mid-afternoon summer meetings just to ensure that his staff members didn't slip out for a round of golf when they could be breaking down Iowa State special teams tape.

Meanwhile, Spurrier let Stoops and his fellow assistants have a life. When Stoops became a head coach, he let his staff have a life. And the Sooners won a national title in his second year. Something is working here.

Look, there's no question that coaching in the NFL is harder than coaching in college. The NFL is full of good players and good coaches; you can get embarrassed every Sunday. But coaches who work until midnight, grab a snack and three hours' sleep and drive back to the office often are doing it out of fear or insecurity or adherence to some macho code. They don't know any better. Spurrier wasted no time in hacking off half the NFL last Monday in his Gators Farewell press conference when he said, "I read somewhere [it was in SI] that [Saints coach] Jim Haslett gets to work at 4:30. It's not doing him any good coming in at 4:30." Ouch.

So Spurrier doesn't work 18 hours a day. He works 10-12 hours a day and uses one of the most supple, creative minds in the game of football to extract success from that time. He coaches quarterbacks and receivers better than any coach in the sport. He demands excellence. He keeps the media at bay (no, we don't like that part, but we understand it), so as to limit distractions for his team. And it works.

Also, people who criticize Spurrier for not going sleepless imply that he's not competitive enough. He's plenty competitive. For example:

1) The week before Florida hosted Tennessee in 1996 at the Swamp in Gainesville, I talked to Spurrier about Florida's huge home-field advantage. The Gators had lost two games -- to eventual national champion Florida State in 1993 and to Auburn in 1994 -- that had not yet faded from memory. In the midst of our conversation, Spurrier jumped out of his chair, stepped over to a white board and began drawing X's and O's in grease pencil. First he diagrammed the Charlie Ward -to- Warrick Dunn pass that broke open the '93 FSU loss. Then he drew up the Patrick Nix -to- Frank Sanders pass that gave Auburn the win in '94. On both occasions, Spurrier explained, the same Gators DB had turned his back on the play. "If we could just get him to turn around, we'd never lose at home," Spurrier said. Point is, Spurrier wasn't accepting either of those losses as deserved.

2) That same year, Florida State beat the Gators in Tallahassee and Seminoles defensive linemen Peter Boulware, Andre Wadsworth and Reinard Wilson pummeled Danny Wuerffel all day. Spurrier bunkered down in his office, changed his blocking scheme and six weeks later the Gators hung 52 points on Florida State in the Sugar Bowl to win the national championship. He works, all right.

In the hours after that game, I saw Spurrier in his hotel suite in New Orleans. As soon as I was within voice range in a hallway, Spurrier told a small group of friends and family members, "This is Tim Layden from Sports Illustrated. He thinks Jake Plummer should have won the Heisman Trophy instead of Danny Wuerffel. Don't you, Tim?" This went on for 15 minutes, Spurrier grilling me over my public pick. It was my cover charge for a one-on-one interview, but Spurrier went way past needling. He wouldn't let me off the hook until I admitted that Danny Wuerffel was terrific, which I had thought all along. I just thought Plummer was better and Spurrier thought I was wrong. That was a game he had to win, too.

So all you critics out there, go ahead and lie in wait for Spurrier's failure. But pack a lunch.

Sports Illustrated senior writer Tim Layden is a regular contributor to CNNSI.com. Click here to send him a question or comment.

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