The Ol’ Ball Coach Is Not As Smart As He Thinks

So University of South Carolina head football coach Steve Spurrier got himself into some trouble on Friday (July 24) when it was finally revealed that he was the lone Southeastern Conference (SEC) coach to not vote for Florida’s Tim Tebow for quarterback on the ballot for the preseason All-SEC team.

There was a bit of a rumble in the sports media world for most of last week when news surfaced that every head coach in the nation’s top football conference voted for the two-time National Champion and 2007 Heisman Trophy winner as the SEC’s top QB – except one.

Tebow is by far the best QB in the SEC and arguably the best in the country entering the 2009 season. So it became a minor story as to who the one coach was who didn’t vote for the squeaky clean Tebow.

With each SEC coach individually asked throughout the week if they, indeed, voted for the Gator QB, the detective-like investigation began to pick up media steam when the culprit had not yet stepped forward – until Friday, at the SEC football media day in Hoover, AL, when the Ol’ Ball coach was backed into a corner and had to come clean.

Now why Spurrier didn’t vote for Tebow is beyond me. Spurrier, of course, is a former head coach at Florida (winning a National Title and six SEC Championships) and has been known to have a dual personality – fun and wacky on one side with an undertone of cunning nastiness (let’s not forget his unapologetic glee following games he mercilessly ran-up the score while at Gainesville).

Spurrier was prepared to admit, at the media day press conference, that his ballot was the one that did not mark Tebow as the conference’s top QB, instead voting for Mississippi’s Jevan Snead.

Knowing he had to produce a reason as to why he passed on Tebow, Spurrier sunk to the lowest level of PR spin and buried a subordinate to save his own tail – he blamed his director of football operations, Jamie Speronis, for voting for the wrong guy.

After opening his presser with praising Tebow for not only being a great quarterback but “living the Christian life”(gag), Spurrier dove into a story as to how the “oversight” occurred:

“I obviously don’t fill out the pre season All-SEC (ballot), I don’t fill it out. My director of operations filled it out. I glanced at it. So when all of this broke Wednesday, I’m driving in and I call him. And I said ‘certainly we had Tim Tebow as the first quarter back, didn’t we?’ And then there was a little pause (big laugh in the media room). It’s my fault, it’s my fault. I glanced at it, but I didn’t look at it…I certainly can’t tell you who we put at left guard or right tackle or tight end…but we all know Tim Tebow is the best. But I said ‘Why in the world wouldn’t you vote for Tim Tebow?’ and he said something like ‘we already had 10 Gators.’ I said that’s a bad reason. So I’ll take the blame.”

So he’ll take the blame? He just spent five minutes explaining that his subordinate screwed up and chose Snead instead of Tebow, but “I’ll take the blame.”

What a hero.

To reiterate, I don’t know why Spurrier and South Carolina football did not vote for Tebow. But I do know it wasn’t a mistake where they simply just picked the wrong guy.

How does a coaching staff forget to vote for a QB who, in last season’s meeting, scored three touchdowns (2 passing, 1 rushing), threw for 173 yards and rushed for 50 more in a 56-6 drubbing against them?

So obviously there’s another reason besides “…we already had 10 Gators.”

How about if Spurrier simply said: “In hindsight, leaving Tim Tebow off the ballot was the wrong decision. I generally don’t spend a lot of time thinking about my choices and, to be honest, I rushed through filling it out. I guess I just don’t place a lot of importance on those things. But I was absolutely wrong not to spend more time reviewing all of the candidates and will do so in the future.”

Spurrier, I’m sure, wasn’t counting on getting caught the way he did and looking foolish as a result. But he was busted and had to answer for it.

There was no way Spurrier was going to escape from the situation unscathed. But as a leader and head of an organization, nothing looks weaker than publicly blaming someone else on your staff for a mistake – even if that staff member was 100% responsible (which in this case, Speronis wasn’t).

A similar situation occurred recently with the Washington Post and its publisher, Katharine Weymouth.

Although this was not a sports story, it is still a significant event in the area of media and public relations.

In an effort to generate additional revenue for the newspaper, Weymouth and the Post were developing a plan to offer exclusive dinner parties at Weymouth’s private residence to prominent lobbyists, trade group members, politicians and business people for a fee of $25,000 per individual for each dinner or a flat fee of $250,000 for all 11 meetings.

Obviously this was an egregious example of conflict of interest and crossed many lines of journalistic ethics. In the midst of the media uproar and criticism, the Post quickly squashed the idea publicly via a statement.

But the statement included an excuse for the tacky revenue pandering scheme as a mistake made by a marketing executive for creating a brochure, which outlined the dinner offer, and allowing it to leak.

A very thin explanation that did nothing more then make Weymouth and the Post seem even more conniving and light on integrity.

For Spurrier to pass the buck and point the finger at someone else, let alone someone else who works under him, is a small and cowardly act only causing him more PR damage.

Again, there’s no way Spurrier was going to come out of the situation smelling like a rose, he had to take some kind of PR hit. But instead of accepting his fate and eating some (well deserved) crow, he tried to lie and weasel his way out of it while burying a subordinate at the same time.

Not a good PR move.

Sometimes, in a crisis (if you can call leaving Tebow of the ballot a crisis), it’s a mistake to over think or over spin the situation.

Spurrier should have stepped forward right away and announced he was ”the coach” and then just make a brief statement admitting he had made a mistake.