Welcome to Knight Talks, the University of Florida College of Journalism and Commun talk show produced by students for student I'm your host, Evan Kitty, a sop studying media production and ma And our guest today is the only alive to be inducted into the National College Footba Hall of Fame as a player and as and into the National High Schoo Hall of Fame.

He's the only person alive to wi Heisman Trophy and coach a Heism And he's the only person alive to be the winningest coach in school history, at two power five universities.

Coach Spurrier coached the Gator from 1992 to 2002, where he led to the first ever SEC championsh and national championship.

His tenure included six SEC championships, averaged more than ten wins a season and only lost five home games in I'm pleased to introduce the hea ball coach himself, Steve Spurri Hi, Coach.

Thank you so much for being here Evan, you have done your homewor That was as good an introduction I think, as I've ever heard.

So appreciate you doing that.

Thank you very much.

As a multi-sport high school ath growing up in Tennessee, what were the odds that you'd end up coming to Gainesville?

Pretty slim, probably.

A kid growing up, I was blessed with a hand-eye coordination.

I could shoot a basketball, hit a baseball, throw a baseball But football, there was really, back in the si nobody threw the ball much, so there was nothing I could do I wasn't fast.

I wasn't big and But I kept going out for footbal because I was a kicker and punte And so my sophomore year, that's all I did.

I punted and kicked off and stuff like that.

And then I guess I grew a little and I just stayed out for footba My buddies said, You'll quit foo because you're no good at it.

Said, you concentrate on basketb and baseball in high school.

But I just played all three sports, kept playing football, a I guess I grew a little bit and then we started throwing the and then all of a sudden I got a scholarship offers in football.

Basketball, baseball were probab still my best sports.

We actually want a couple of sta championships in baseball, which is the highlight in my hig career was winning those two.

But football, I seem to think that was the direction I needed to go in college.

And then I visited University of and Coach Graves, our head coach was instrumental in me coming to and Florida had not done a lot in football, so I felt like I had an opportun to maybe achieve some things that had never happened before.

So that was a big reason I came to Florida.

Yeah, well, we are so glad that you came to I was blessed to come to Florida and met my wife Jerri here.

And we've been married well over 50 years now and she's been with me every step of the way.

She's instrumental in physical f and doing all the things a head coach wife has to do, take care of the players, player and all this, that and the other And we had good camaraderie within our coaching staff with all the families because we got together so often Sounds like she was the perfect She knew how to do it.

Somebody said if there was a hea coaches wives Hall of Fame, she would be the first inductee and she would be.

When you have that really strong system, you can go very, very fa You played football at Florida in the sixties before any Heisman Trophies or championships.

What was the culture around the on campus at the time?

Football was important.

It was very important, but we didn't, in the back of ou we didn't talk about winning the that much.

We talked about, Hey, let's go beat these guys th Let's go beat those guys.

I really think we had some teams when I played in the mid sixties that were capable of winning the but we seemed to lose that one g each year that knocked it out of In fact, Georgia beat Florida every time the SEC was on the li until 1990.

If Florida was about to win it, Georgia would beat us.

If Georgia was about to beat us, they beat the Gators.

So we finally got that mental hurdle knocked down in 1990.

And as you know, we beat Georgia 11 out of 12 yea We put ourselves in position to win all those SEC championshi And that rivalry still continues It continues.

They've gotten the best of us the last several years and hopefully we can do somethin different this year.

What are some of your most memorable moments leading the Ga as a starting quarterback?

I guess maybe come from behind game we beat FSU here in the Swamp in They had a one point lead and we were able to drive 75, 80 yards and score with a mi or so.

Charley Casey called a little ou and that pass, that was sort of a fun win because they beaten the year bef And that was the first time FSU had ever beaten Florida was the year before that So that was a fun one.

And then probably kicking the fi against Auburn, which actually won the Heisman f If we had beat Georgia the next that field goal had been bigger.

But anyway, Georgia beat us the and knocked us out of the SEC.

But yeah, kicking the field goal with a couple of minutes left I guess is what won the Heisman that year.

You were drafted by the San Francisco 49ers in 1967 and played there for quite a few Later, you also played for the Tampa Ba How did your college experience translate to the NFL?

Well, I got drafted by San Franc they actually traded three players to the Atlanta Falcons to get th And then they took me.

John Brodie was already the quar there.

He'd been there eight or nine ye and they said, well, he's got two or three year Then we'll get you ready to play or three years later.

So I guess I didn't put a lot of in getting ready to play, I don' But I did last nine years out th mostly as a backup quarterback.

And then the Tampa Bay Buccaneer got the franchise back in 76 and they traded for me.

So I played one year there.

And then after that they sort of you know, needed a younger guy.

And so I was released and that was my last year.

So I came back, I started watching Gators play.

I'd always come back to Gainesvi Fortunately, Doug Dickey, who was a coach her gave me the job as quarterback c So I got my foot in the door and started coaching.

The quarterback coach at Georgia left for another job and Pepper a coach up there, was my backfie coach here at Florida my sophomo And he hired me to come up and b the quarterback coach at Georgia And about the middle of the year even started allowing me to call and pretty much act like the offensive coordinator, which And I met the Duke University co and they were looking for an offensive coordinator, so I got a chance to go up there Coach Fred Wilson was a wonderful guy to wo and he's the guy that handed out some motivational sheets on how to be a good coach and ho how you talk to your players, handle them and so forth.

And I really credit him for sort of teaching me how to be a And I was there three years and then got a chance to be a he with the Tampa Bay Bandits in th Football League, USFL.

So I was fortunate to be a head It lasted 31 years as a head coa There were three other guys my a that were head coaches way back there in 83, 84, and the longest any of them lasted was one year.

The other two got fired during t So that just sort of goes to sho that the coaching profession is not guaranteed.

For me the last 31 years, I feel very blessed to have done I was here at Florida for 12 yea I'm still the longest lasting coach at Florida.

Once you get into coaching and i I loved it because it did not seem like wor You know, you can't wait to get to the off You can't wait but game plan in.

Can't wait to coach the guys during the week.

And then Game Day was always most fun for me, the and try to get your guys to beat the other guys and celebrate a l not too much, and then get ready for the next game after that and of the big things that really he is that we started goal setting.

It started at Duke, actually, before I came to Florida.

Somebody asked me one time, How in the world were you guys a six SECs your first seven years when they never won one?

And I said, Well, the players were here to win it.

Obviously they were already here They just needed the mental part to believe, Hey, we're good enough to win th thing, let's go do it.

So eliminate the excuses.

Everybody get on the same page.

Let's go in this dang thing.

The mental part of it to me was huge because we basically took the same group of here at Florida that they went s and five the year before, I think seven and five year befo And then all of a sudden we started beating all those teams that used to own That's awesome.

Today we see players doing quite media, if not all over social me What did media obligations at th of the sport entail when you pla It wasn't nearly as big as it is But we did talk to the media, obviously.

I have a sheet also that tells you how to talk to th And we coached the players on how to talk to the media.

Every now and then when I might and say something that might irritate our opponents.

Now you might say, Hey, we're go to beat these guys, which is fin But in the offseason I would tell some cheap jokes at the Gator Club, which didn't mean anything because when the season rolled a everybody had already forgotten you know, that cute little joke about Tennessee.

You can't spell Citrus Bowl without a UT in it.

That was one of the little corny FSU Some of their players got some free Nike shoes that su Somebody said FSU Free Shoe Univ So I told that corny joke down i I think.

But when the season and the week of the game, we forgot about all Try to concentrate on the game i Was the end of your NFL career a difficult time in your life?

Did you have backup plans ready in the works?

I did not have backup plans.

When I was finished, got cut by a couple of teams, came back, watch the Gators play And I remember sitting up in the watching the coaches, watching a or two and I said, You know what I've got to do something in life Back then we didn't make as much as those players nowadays in the so I had to get a job and I thou maybe coaching would be something would be fun.

I got an opportunity to get into and really enjoyed it and just r fortunate and blessed that some coaches hired me along I tell people all the time it wa I was fortunate because I didn't play at Alabama I didn't work under Bear Bryant or Nick Saban.

I my background was Florida and How many football coaches come out of Duke?

You know?

Yeah.

I think what you said abou being able to see kind of what you like in a c and also what you don't like in I think that was probably instru to your coaching.

Exactly.

In 1983, you took your first head coachin with the Tampa Bay Bandits of th lived United States Football Lea This was followed by leading Duk from 1987 to 1989.

What did you learn about coachin organizational leadership over t that led you to being named the ACC Coach of the Year in 88 I tried to learn all I could about how to be a good coach, especially a good head coach and And I was an offensive coach.

I was always the offensive coord called the plays and this, that other.

So getting a chance to go to Duke as the head coach 89, those three years we really had a lot of good play And we got those guys believing they were good enough to win and good enough to beat Clemson and Carolina and all those ACC schoo And I think I mentioned about goal setting.

So prior to the 89 season at Duk my wife gave me a sheet on how to set goals and how to achieve the goals.

And you get your group of people So I got all of our seniors and our captains, maybe about 15 We're going to set four or five we're gonna see if we hit them t Beat North Carolina, in-state ri Write that one down.

Another goal was to finish in the top 25.

If we finished 24, 25, man that'd be great.

Go to a bowl game.

Duke had not been to a bowl game in 28 years.

Since 62.

27 years, I guess.

So go to a bowl game.

I said, these are pretty good.

These are pretty good.

Is that it?

And one of the guys raised his h our center Bubba Metz.

He said, Coach, we think we can the ACC football championship.

And I said, Wait a minute, now, when you're setting goals, they have to be doable.

You know, you think we can win t football championship?

Now obviously we did win it and the only one in the last 60 year So how did that happen?

It didn't happen because we lucked into it.

It happened because that guy sai we think we can win the ACC football championship.

What you said it always comes back to mindset; like if you believe in yourself, you can really achieve anything.

But if you don't, you're going t a really difficult time.

You have a chance, if you believ can do it, you've got an excelle It's not guaranteed.

Right.

It's not guaranteed.

But it does give you an opportun And when the moment arises, hey, this is what we're looking for.

This is what we wanted.

Obviously our teams in the ninet especially with Danny Wuerffel, the belief that all those player is pretty much what carried our to those four straight SCC's and the national championship.

If we can ever play with that at and effort and teamwork, you kno maybe we can get back to champio football here real soon.

FSU is the Gators in-state rival and those stakes were raised dra in 1996 with the national champi game against the Seminoles.

How important are these rivalries and did that victory feel even sweeter becaus Oh, it did a little bit, I guess, because they did beat u the last game of the season.

We went up there.

We were both u We're both ten and 0.

I think they were number one.

We were number two, something like that.

And they knocked Danny Wuerffel down, I think it was 32 times after he thrown the ball.

And they did call roughing the p much back then.

They had different rules for roughing the passer than the So anyway, we didn't win it and we thought we were completel of the national championship pic But anyway, we had Alabama the next week for the SEC champi I basically came back and said, we can't do anything about what last week.

Lets go win us another SEC and go fro So we did.

We put shotgun formation in actually that week and Danny threw six touchdown passes again and we beat them, I think, 45 to And then all of a sudden these teams that were ranked ahead of us all started losing.

And it set up a rematch when Arizona State lost the Rose Bowl to Ohio State.

It set up the rematch and that didn't happen until the night before the Sugar Bowl in New Orl So we were the last game, colleg football game, of the year that And our guys were really ready t And that was the 52 to 20 win ov But winning the national champio was bigger than just beaten FSU.

Wed beaten them some.

They beat us a bunch and they were really good back in th Bobby Bowden had I think it was something like 12 straight years top five team in the nation.

So they were always really tough back in the nineties.

You're also well known for your personality behind the as a head coach.

How did you view your responsibi and interactions with the press?

Oh, they were always pretty good The only time I'd get mad at the was if he said something that wa I said, You called me a lousy co and I called a bunch of lousy pl and I may agree with you, but don't to say that was not tr And so I we had a couple of issu with a couple of guys.

One thing I probably did and I did it on purpose was to t talk the way all the other coach I read somewhere in life to be successful in life you can do it like everybody els and try to outwork them more hou more blah, blah, blah.

Or you can do it differently and confidently and that will get you there, maybe even better than the other It's embracing this uniqueness that no one else has.

Right, exactly.

And you showed the players how to interact with the media.

Yeah, we would have a little tea All right, here's here's how we talk to the and we try to say good things about our opponents, not overly good things.

You know, wont talk about how great they are.

Just, hey, they're a real good t and we've got to play well to be Things of that nature.

Don't give away too much information like their offensive line is sor You know, we think we can go right through them or something So always try to be positive when talking to the media.

You got to realize your opponent are probably going to read it.

And that you don't want to give them any to add to the fire, as they say.

It reminds me of back in 1990 we were undefeated and we went up to Tennessee.

They had a really good team that It was only 7 to 3 at half and they ran the kickoff back.

They got an interception for a t bang, bang, bang.

We're down 28 to 3 and we could not block their guy So I took Shane Matthews, our SEC Player of the Year quarterback, out of the game in the fourth qu In The Art of War by Sun Tzu, he Save your soldiers if a battle's already lost.

Don't get guys killed when it's already lost.

So I took out Shane and a couple of other guys.

Said, You guys ain't getting hurt in t So we get beat 45 to 3.

We got clobbered.

The next week, we're playing Aub Auburn came to the Swamp undefea and one of their players said, If you get ahead of the Ga they'll quit.

When the dust settled here in th we beat Auburn 48 to 7.

48 to 7.

So we used that comment by an op to maybe give us a little extra fire that night and that was a big win.

And then wed beat Georgia the n and went on and won the SEC that You don't let those negative com ruin your day.

You actually allow them to inspire you to do even better You step down from your role with the Gators in 2002 and became the head coach of the Washington Redskins for two seas Then in 2005, you returned to th as head coach for South Carolina What did you hope to achieve with the Gamecocks?

Yeah, after 12 years here, I sort of thought, well, maybe I've done this long enough and maybe coaching NFL four or f would be good.

And then hang it Didnt work out very well.

It's the only coaching job I've where I was not in charge of the So I left and sat out a year and then the South Carolina job They offered me the job.

It was a school that didn't have much history in We had a lot of good years: three straight 11 seasons, top t Did not win an SEC.

I thought we could put together to win one, but it never worked We did win one division.

In fact, we beat the Gators down here in the Swamp in 2010 to win the only division up ther Leaving the Gamecocks in 2015, you were named ambassador and consultant for the Florida G What knowledge have you been able to pass down to newer generations of athletes and coaches?

Some of the coaches here asked me to speak to their team and I guess my favorite one was Shelton with men's tennis.

I think back in 2019, he had me go talk to their team.

I mentioned what we did at Duke as far as setting goals, and one of our guys said, let's win the ACC champion And lo and behold, we did it.

And I had to ask Coach Shelton, Have you guys set goals Well, not really.

You know, of course, writing them down and talking ab But our men's tennis two years l won the men's national champions First in school history.

Wow.

So Coach Shelton and his te that was a wonderful night.

And they played it in Orlando and my wife, Jerri, and I were able to drive down to I don't know if my talk had anything to do with it, but I know that that team was no to go win a national championshi for the first time ever.

And they did it in Orlando that In 2016, Ben Hill Griffin Stadium was renamed to Steve Spurrier Florida Field at Ben Hill Griffi What does this change mean to yo Yeah, I said this the time.

And I still believe it.

It's the nicest honor I've ever I've been fortunate to get a bun here, there and the other.

But to have your name on your stadium where you played, where you coac and it is, I think, the best hon that I've ever received.

So I'm trying to do my best to sing the praises of our university everyw To be number five nationally ran academic state university in the public school, is pretty neat.

All of our other sports, footbal and basketball are sort of in a slump right now, but all of our other sports do so well, especially our women sports are really good.

Gymnastics could win the national championship this y They've won the SEC like five years in a row Our women's softball is doing ve I think men baseball this year may have a chance to g We'll have to wait and see how that plays out.

But some of our sports teams really represent the University first class way.

I think at Florida, just having that winning mindset of, I can do this, I believe in myself, that is definitely instrumental for them in their success.

Definitely.

Since retiring from coaching, you've opened Spurriers Gridiron Grill and became a freq on TV, radio and podcasts, including WRUFs Inside the Hudd What do you enjoy about sports broadcasting and commentary?

I think it just keeps me a little more connected to all the Steve Russell, Shane Matthews and I do the Inside the Huddle h I do another podcast with Pat Do former sports editor of the Gainesville Sun.

And we just talk all the sports season each year and so forth and sort of throw an opinion in and this, that and the other.

But I do enjoy doing those.

It keeps me connected a little b to college football as well as the other sports.

I just happen to be a football c I can enjoy the other sports just as much as football, maybe But anyway, I do enjoy doing tha And understand the dedication that goes behind all that succes Oh, definitely.

The commitment that teams have to make nowadays successful is a huge part of it as we know.

You play 12 hours during the sea thats all.

But then you train the whole yea for those 12 hours or more, if you're in the playof and bowl games and so forth.

Obviously you have to have talen talented players in any sport.

But after that, the dedication, by the entire team is, to me, what separates them from everybody else To kind of wrap up this intervie what advice would you give to st in general at the University of I would suggest that all students start to set some goals what they want to do in life.

Most students, after a couple of years in colle they know what maybe they want to do with their what kind of profession they want to pursue.

So I think if you want to really do it, sor write it down and look at it eve and, you know, make each day, hey, I'm on the way.

I'm progressing toward what I want to do in life.

So that would be my suggestion to write down what you want to achieve and go Thank you for your insight, coac I really enjoyed our conversatio And thank you, our viewers, for joining us.

Until next time, goodnight.