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Morris: Spurrier bloomed as Bandit
South Carolina head coach Steve Spurrier talks with South Carolina running back Eric Baker No. 28 after Baker fumbles the ball that was recovered by USC during the second quarter Saturday as Florida defeated USC 56-6 at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium in Gainesville, Fla., Nov. 15, 2008.
Rich Glickstein/rglickstein@thestate.com /Rich Glickstein/rglickstein@thestate.com
Posted on 12.28.08
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TAMPA, Fla.
JOHN BASSETT’S DECISION on a head coach for his Tampa Bay Bandits team in the newly formed United States Football League came down to this: Hire Jack Pardee, the wily veteran of six NFL seasons, or go with the youngster Steve Spurrier, whose best resume line was a three-year stint as offensive coordinator at Duke.
Like with everything else in the now-defunct USFL, Bassett rolled the dice. He gambled on Spurrier. As it turned out, the Bandits proved to be the cables for charging Spurrier’s head-coaching battery.
A quarter of a century after that hiring, Spurrier returns to the Tampa area this week, bringing along his South Carolina football team to play in the New Year’s Day Outback Bowl. He will be reunited with Jim McVay, president of the Outback Bowl, who served as director of marketing during all three of the Bandits’ seasons in Tampa.
“That was a great opportunity that John Bassett gave him and that launched his career,” McVay said. “When opportunity and preparation meet, then all of a sudden success is there. Steve was good for everybody. He was the face of the franchise. He was the head coach. He did a magnificent job. He really did.”
Spurrier led the Bandits to the playoffs in two of their three seasons. His teams posted regular-season records of 11-7, 14-4 and 10-8. More importantly, his brand of “BanditBall” played well to Tampa Bay area fans who tired of watching the Buccaneers lose while playing the NFL’s stodgy style of football.
Tampa Bay proved to be the league’s most successful franchise, finishing second in the league in attendance in 1983 with 39,896 fans per game, then leading the summer league in 1984 (46,158) and 1985 (45,220).
“I’ve had a lot of fun everywhere, really,” Spurrier said, “but that was my first head coaching job. That was some fun times, no question about it.”
It almost never happened. Bassett, a Canadian beer baron, originally approached Spurrier about being Tampa Bay’s offensive coordinator. Spurrier told the owner he only was interested in a head coaching position. So, Bassett flew to Durham, N.C., to see what this brash 37-year-old was all about.
The two hit it off over dinner and Spurrier took Bassett to his home to meet his wife, Jerri, and their children. Before he left Durham, Bassett offered Spurrier the head coaching job. Spurrier accepted, without inquiring about a salary.
After Spurrier was introduced in Tampa as the first head coach of the Bandits in late November of 1982, he pulled Bassett aside and asked what his compensation would be.
“We’re going to start you low and let you work your way up,” Spurrier recalled Bassett saying. “We’ll start you at fifty grand.”
“Isn’t that embarrassing?” Spurrier responded. “Isn’t that embarrassing to the organization if I’m the lowest paid coach in the league?”
“We’re giving you an opportunity to grow,” Bassett said.
Spurrier negotiated his salary to $60,000, which was nearly double the $33,000 he was making as a Duke assistant coach. By the end of the first season, Bassett jumped Spurrier’s annual earnings to $125,000.
“To start with, we had the lowest paid coach and the lowest paid team,” Spurrier said. “What was fun was before the first year started, some of the NFL experts judged the teams, the personnel and the coaches. They picked us to be the worst team in the league. They figured we had a college coach who had never even been a head coach and the cheapest team in the league because we didn’t spend any money on any players.”
While other USFL teams sought and signed the likes of stars such as Herschel Walker, Steve Young, Jim Kelly and Reggie White, the Bandits went after re-tread NFL players or young potential stars that the NFL had overlooked. John Reaves had retired as an NFL quarterback when the Bandits signed him. Receiver Danny Buggs out of West Virginia, running back Gary Anderson from Arkansas and lineman Nate Newton from Florida A&M proved to be stars in the USFL before heading to the NFL.
After winning five of its first six games in the inaugural USFL season, the Bandits faded down the stretch and missed out on the playoffs. The following season, Tampa Bay tied Birmingham for the Southern Division title but lost to the Stallions in the first round of the playoffs. Tampa Bay’s USFL history concluded with a 1985 playoff loss at Oakland before a crowd of 19,346.
“It was a rewarding experience for all of us because we built something from scratch,” McVay said. “We had a lot of fun because we had a lot of good people. That was a special time for all of us as we were launching our careers in the sports industry, whether it be front office, coaches or players.”
The Bandits’ nickname came from the popular 1977 movie “Smokey and the Bandit,” which starred Burt Reynolds, who was part of the team’s ownership group. Country singer Jerry Reed, also a part of the ownership team, released the team fight song “BanditBall.”
Also, Reynolds’ girlfriend at the time, Loni Anderson, was pictured on billboards around the Tampa area in a skimpy Bandits’ jersey with the slogan “All the fun the law allows.”
“The halftime shows, pregame shows, everything,” McVay said. “We did more promotions —- mortgage burnings, diamond giveaways, bikini contests, car giveaways. It was quite a package.
“Part of selling and marketing is you have to have the proper packaging, proper promotions and proper pricing. But the most important thing is you have the right product. This was football in Florida, and Steve coached them up to where we had winning, exciting football... . Steve did a magnificent job pulling everything together.”
When the league folded following the 1985 season, Reaves finished among the career leaders in passing yards, and Anderson and Greg Boone were top 10 all-time in rushing yards. Eric Truvillion was among the career league leaders in receiving and Fred Nordgren was second all-time in sacks.
Bassett, the Bandits’ owner, died of a brain tumor in May 1986, setting off a string of tragic events. The team’s general partner, its director of player personnel and its public relations director, all committed suicide over the next six years as did former player James Harrell.
For Spurrier, the league proved to be verification that his offense and his style of non-conformist coaching could work at the professional level. Yet, Spurrier longed to be a college head coach. He interviewed for jobs at California, Mississippi State and LSU, but could not survive a final cut.
Finally, after sitting out a year from coaching, the Tampa Bay Bucs’ job came open in January 1987. Spurrier badly wanted the position and telephoned Hugh Culverhouse, the owner.
“I’d like to be the coach,” Spurrier recalled telling Culverhouse. “You can start me low.”
“I appreciate it,” Spurrier recalled Culverhouse saying, “but I’ve already got a guy coming.”
That guy was Ray Perkins, then the head coach and athletics director at Alabama. Shortly thereafter, Duke head coach Steve Sloan filled Perkins’ position as athletics director at Alabama, and Spurrier’s Hall of Fame college coaching career began soon after at Duke.
None of it would have happened, Spurrier still says, unless Bassett gambled on a young unproven assistant coach at Duke in 1982.
Listen to Morris Tuesdays from 4-5 p.m. on ESPN Radio 93.1 FM
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