Spurrier Jr. excited about new duties

South Carolina assistant coach Steve Spurrier Jr. readily admits he doesn’t like talking on the telephone, but he’s ready to embrace his newfound role and all its responsibilities.

Spurrier was named Wednesday as the Gamecocks’ recruiting coordinator, taking over for the departed Shane Beamer, whose lasting legacy in Columbia will likely be the strides USC was able to make in recruiting under his watch.

Spurrier takes over on the heels of USC signing one of its best classes, which was capped with the decision of No. 1 prospect Jadeveon Clowney to play for the Gamecocks.

“One of the things I’ve never particularly liked doing was answering my phone all the time,” Spurrier said. “I don’t like talking to everybody. I’ve never loved all that stuff, but as a recruiting coordinator you better like talking to everybody that knows anybody that wants to talk about high school football. You better have a good relationship with all those people, so I’m excited about reaching out to people in this state and making sure we continue our success recruiting this state.”

Spurrier will continue to serve as USC’s receivers coach and passing game coordinator. Despite his previous responsibilities, he wanted to take on the added burden of another role.

“I told them that I’d really like to have the job,” he said. “If there was an opportunity to have it, I wanted it. I understood the job and what it required. I’ll do the best job I can do. [USC coach Steve Spurrier] looked around at a few options and said, ‘Have a run at it. If we need to divide it as time goes, we will.’ ”

Serving as recruiting coordinator doesn’t entail as much as it once did. SEC schools are among the national leaders in expenditures on recruiting, and much of that money is spent on hiring in-house assistants that take care of the paperwork and scheduling that would be cumbersome to assistant coaches that already have to juggle coaching-related responsibilities.

That means Spurrier shouldn’t have any trouble continuing to develop USC’s receivers and passing game due to his new role. The program’s director of high school relations, Robbie Liles, and his staff will continue to make Spurrier’s life easier as they did for Beamer.

Though some recruiting areas will change – Spurrier said USC plans to finalize its new structure within the next few weeks – with the addition of NFL assistant John Butler to the staff, Spurrier will continue to recruit the South Carolina coastline and some inland areas along the Interstate 95 corridor along with his responsibilities in northern and central Florida.

“My area will not change,” Spurrier said. “With John Butler coming in, we’ll try and figure out what the best area for him is. There will be some changes with two or three coaches in how we divide up Georgia. We put Jay Graham in South Carolina and have given him Shane Beamer’s old area. He’ll do a great job there, and it will be nice to have him instate.”

This story was originally published February 24, 2011 at 10:13 AM with the headline "Spurrier Jr. excited about new duties."