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Spurrier talks football after golf repeat
Coach teams with Sharpe to repeat as Chick-fil-A champs
CommentsFORT MILL — The questions mostly were about football, but Steve Spurrier wanted to talk about golf. And who could blame him?
For the second straight year, South Carolina’s football coach teamed with former All-American and NFL star Sterling Sharpe earlier Tuesday to win a coaches-and-alums golf tournament in Greensboro, Ga., sponsored by the Chick-fil-A Bowl. Beating Virginia Tech coach Frank Beamer and ex-Hokies basketball star Dell Curry netted USC $120,000 for scholarships.
“Sterling was sensational,” Spurrier said, having flown here from Georgia to address the Charlotte-area Gamecock Club. “He made clutch putts down the stretch and had to make a 10-12-footer (on the 18th hole) to keep us alive.”
Sharpe sank an 8-foot birdie putt on the 17th hole to get his team to 12-under-par and into a playoff. After one extra hole, Spurrier and Sharpe won when their shots from 150 yards finished 18 feet from the flag. Beamer could get no closer than 23 feet.
“(Sharpe) made putts. I made a few, but he did most of the playing,” Spurrier said.
With more than 200 fans, including ex-USC players Casper Brinkley and Travelle Wharton of the Carolina Panthers, listening at Nation Ford High, Spurrier — accompanied by basketball coaches Darrin Horn and Dawn Staley — also addressed non-golf questions:
On the emergence of freshman Stephon Gilmore, a Rock Hill (South Pointe High) native: “In all likelihood, he’ll be a starter at corner. We certainly hope we can put him in at shotgun quarterback (on offense). We need to get the ball in his hands.”
The coach said another rookie, DeVonte Holloman, also will play “a lot” and could start in 2009.
On last weekend’s NFL draft, when seven Gamecocks were taken off a 7-6 team: “We’ll wait and see if they all make their teams. But we had a lot of good players. I don’t think we played our best toward the end of the year. You need good team chemistry, and I don’t think we had that.”
On complaints by lineman Jamon Meredith that USC coaches hurt his status in the draft: “Our coaches don’t have anything to do with who gets drafted. If we did, Kenny McKinley would’ve been a first-round pick. ... Unfortunately, some of our guys always have reasons if things don’t go well; (they say) ‘It’s someone else’s fault, not mine.’ ”
On the struggles of quarterback Stephen Garcia: “I hear all these pro teams saying you’ve got to have a quarterback, and I’m starting to agree with them. You’ve got to have a guy you hang your hat on.”
Reach Senior Writer Bob Gillespie at (803) 771-8304
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