COLUMBIA, S.C. — Steve Spurrier met his future boss at the Ol’ Ball Coach’s home in suburban Alexandria, Va., in 2004.
Spurrier, the former Washington Redskins coach, had learned the worst thing about the NFL is working for a buffoon owner. Mike McGgee, the former South Carolina athletic director, had learned that hardest part of big time college football was surviving in the SEC.
Spurrier wanted in and McGee wanted up.
McGee told it like it was: South Carolina had a ton of potential but was lagging behind the SEC powers in almost every facet — recruiting, history, facilities.
“You’re saying it’s a challenge,” McGee recalled Spurrier saying. “That was paramount to Steve. He was very eager.”
That was until Spurrier took one look at Williams-Brice Stadium, which was painted entirely in prison gray.
“Can’t we at least paint some of it garnet?” Spurrier asked an assistant. “Maybe spruce it up a bit.”
That was the easy part.
This was the hard part:
Clemson owned recruiting in the state. SEC powers such as Georgia and Alabama were second. South Carolina? Well, as freshman star recruit Jadeveon Clowney said, “I grew up a Texas fan.”
Tradition? Until last season’s SEC East Division title, the only other league crown South Carolina owned was the 1969 ACC title. The Gamecocks spent 20 years (1971-91) as independent vagabonds.
“Do you remember the Metro Conference?” McGee asked.
‘Nuf said.
South Carolina’s facilities were Flinstonian. When a coach’s locker room was built several years ago, it didn’t have air conditioning. No air conditioning in the south is like no taxis in New York.
“I always remember [ESPN’s Lee] Corso saying, ‘Spurrier can’t win at South Carolina because they don’t have the money,'” Spurrier said.
The Gamecocks, whom The Post is picking to win this year’s BCS crown, have put their money where their football program is. South Carolina, which according to a 2010 Department of Education survey, has the 11th most profitable program in the country.
With Spurrier’s smooth Southern charm and dazzling resume as a college coach (he led Florida to the 1996 national championship) and player (he won the Heisman Trophy in 1966), landing some of the nation’s best talent, and his sixth sense for play calling, the Gamecocks are ready to make history.
“We’re the sexy team,” Spurrier told The Post. “Gosh, nobody picked Auburn last year. What were they, 23rd in the nation last year preseason?”
Last year’s SEC East title would have most coaches soft-pedaling expectations. Not Spurrier.
“Steve is fearless,” former Arkansas, Notre Dame and South Carolina coach turned ESPN “College GameDay” personality Lou Holtz told The Post. “He’s tremendously confident, and that confidence carries over to his players.”
Spurrier can tick off his accomplishments in Columbia without any cue cards: South Carolina’s first-ever win in Knoxville, Tenn., the Gamecocks’ first-ever win at Florida, their first SEC East title, their first win over a No. 1-ranked team (Alabama last season), the first back-to-back wins over Clemson in school history.
“But there’s still a ways to go,” he added. “We never finished in the Top 10, never won a major bowl, never won the SEC. There’s still a whole bunch of firsts out there for us.”
If South Carolina is to win its first-ever SEC title, it almost would guarantee a spot in the BCS title game. The last five national champs have come from the SEC.
“We’ll get a little pub right now, get our fans fired up over it,” he said. “Then we’ll see. I think we’ve assembled hopefully one of our best teams ever.”
He has. Running back Marcus Lattimore, a South Carolina product, was last year’s SEC Freshman of the Year. Clowney, also from South Carolina, who chose the Gamecocks over Alabama, was the nation’s No. 1 defensive recruit.
The schedule, by SEC standards, is favorable, with neither Alabama nor LSU on the slate. So why aren’t the Gamecocks in any other preseason Top 10 poll?
Well, in addition to the fact that South Carolina has never played the role of favorite, its starting quarterback is as unpredictable as puppy. Senior Stephen Garcia should become the school’s career passing leader. Or he could be suspended for a sixth and last time. His troubles have ranged from public intoxication to keying a professor’s car. Spurrier hired G.A. Mangus in 2009 as quarterbacks coach, essentially to bird-eye his star QB. But Mangus was arrested in July and fined one month’s pay for urinating in public.
So South Carolina is hardly a safe pick, even though the SEC coaches voted the Gamecocks to repeat as East Division champs.
Garcia has zero-tolerance status. Mangus needs to be in walking distance of a Port-O-Potty at all times. There are monster road games at Georgia and Arkansas.
Spurrier listens with that used-car-salesman grin of his. He won’t talk about his time with the Redskins. And you dare not refer to the 66-year-old as the Ol’ Ball Coach.
This is exactly where he wanted to be when he arrived seven years ago.
“That’s really the reason I wanted the job is because there was nowhere to go but up,” he said. “I didn’t really want one of those schools that had already won a national championship, won a bunch of conferences. I wanted one that had a chance to [do] what maybe had never done been before.”