The Head Ball Coach Quit On His Team

Here in South Carolina, the state deemed too small to be a nation and too large to be an insane asylum, we're finally over the cop killing of an unarmed black man, the mass murder of nine parishioners in their church and historic flooding that closed more than 500 roads from Columbia to Charleston.

Those stories ended yesterday when the head ball coach suddenly retired. The University of South Carolina, like a lot of southern colleges, is a football team with a university attached. The main purpose of its alumni is to buy tickets to football games.

Now that Steve Spurrier has stepped down without warning, everyone connected with the state, and with SEC football, has spent the past two days lionizing him and his 10-year tenure at the helm of the Gamecocks.

Undoubtedly, Spurrier has lifted the 'Cocks to new heights, including three straight 11-2 seasons in the brutal SEC, wins over arch-rival Clemson and prestigious bowl victories. He has recruited half a dozen of the 10 best players the team has ever produced,. including Jadeveon Clowney, Connor Shaw and Marcus Lattimore. And he retires with the most coaching wins at what locals sadly call "USC." He put the program on the college football map.

What no one seems to have noticed is that the head ball coach has quit on his team. He said it himself: he's leaving because he was frustrated by the 7-6 showing last year and thought the team would be better than the league cellar-dwellers it appears to be this year. He doesn't like the losing and so he has quit.

Just like that. Middle of the season. No heir apparent. Facing a string of tough SEC games.

Imagine if a player decided to quit on the team because it stunk. What would the sports media, the people of South Carolina and Gamecock nation be saying? He lacks character. He's a quitter. He's immature. I'm pretty sure Steve Spurrier would have had some cutting remarks for a juvenile outburst like that.

Is the inventor of Fun 'n' Gun allowed to act like a crybaby just because he's got a legacy? If the 'Cocks, already dealing with the upheaval on the field and in the classroom, go winless in the conference this year, what does that do to recruiting?

The local newspaper is selling Spurrier's departure as selfless, allowing the anonymous assistant coach who succeeds him (without any chance of succeeding) an opportunity to turn the club around. It's plump with speculation about the next big name coach, proposing that South Carolina could lure Bob Stoops from Oklahoma or Mark D'Antoni from Michigan State. They assert that the 11-2 records that Spurrier engineered three-to-five years ago have set the bar higher and will draw a bigger name.

Only someone who has never been to Columbia, SC and is not paying attention to the current state of the team could make such a lame suggestion, and yet residents of that squalid town are the only ones doing it.

No, Spurrier has dropped the team on its head in the middle of the season. He took his ball and went home. He has left South Carolina football high and dry, even after 18 inches of rain. It's as if everyone is wearing a visor -- and has it pulled down over their eyes.