Spurrier slams Columbia writer

He said the story happened in the Spring (anyone have a link to it?), if so, why did he wait so long? It's 5 weeks into the season and all of the sudden he pulls this? I'm sure it has nothing to do with him kicking Garcia of the team for the 100th time in five years

 

I'd love to take some of the mouth-breathers on this forum and line them up in front of a news conference.

 

So we're quoting fan message boards now? Jeez.

 

If Spurrier's now pulling out a story that was done -- what, six months ago? -- to go at the writer, then you can damn well be sure it's just to deflect attention away from the whole Garcia mess (which, if the time codes are right, hit the fanboy sites AFTER the mess with the press conference) ...

 

When I found out this was a story from the spring off of USA Today's website (http://content.usatoday.com/communities/campusrivalry/post/2011/10/steve-spurrier-ron-morris-south-carolina-calls-out/1) I almost couldn't believe it. To think anything other than he was trying to deflect attention from the Garcia situation seems foolish at best.

 

Good For You!!!!!!

 

Ding ding ding...

 

I like Ron Morris. I think he's a nice guy. In all my dealings with him, including as a stringer for The State while I was in college, he was good to deal with. That being said, as somebody who follows South Carolina football and reads Ron Morris on a regular basis, he is an incredibly negative writer toward Gamecock athletics. I don't say that as a Gamecock fan, but as somebody who has worked in journalism for 15 years. He's South Carolina's version of Paul Finebaum, but not nearly as good a writer.

Should this have been handled behind closed doors instead of a press conference? Yes. Was Spurrier wrong to decline to do interviews with the print media because Ron Morris was in the room? Yes.

But, Ron Morris has baited South Carolina coaches for years. Somebody called him out on it. Spurrier has made it Spurrier vs. the Columnist. And I'd be willing to bet subscriptions and advertising will decline -- maybe a little, maybe a lot -- because of this. Ninety-nine percent of people will side with Spurrier because of the tone of Morris' columns.

Yes, The State will get a ton of hits on their website in the next few days. But I think it'll be costly in the long run.

 

If it was a lie it should have been dealt with long before. Because it wasn't I say shame on anyone that would have stayed. I was in a situation like this with an NBA coach and when he wanted someone gone, the remaining three of us left.

 

The best Spurrier media story goes as such. I think this one was in Tony Barnhart's book.

It's Tennessee week in the late 1990s. Chris Harry, the longtime UF writer for the Orlando Sentinel, is having his practice notebook picked up and run in the Knoxville paper. Spurrier finds out about it and goes ballistic. Some of the longtime UF writers say it was the maddest they'd ever seen Spurrier.

The Gainesville columnist, Pat Dooley, a buffoon who made a career for himself by slobbering all over Spurrier, writes a column tearing Harry a new asshole, and completely defends Spurrier for flipping out.

Harry gets death threats, one of which stated something about how they know where his daughter goes to school and how he better watch his family or something like that.

Harry goes to Spurrier and says, "Because of all of this, I'm getting death threats. Someone made a threat against my daughter."

Spurrier looks at Harry and says, "Well, you shouldn't have written it."

 

How can anyone think Spurrier is in the right here going by this performance of his? It's over a writer saying he "poached" a player from the schools basketball team.

That's true. He did take a player from the basketball team. You can get into semantics over the word, but Spurrier waits till now to unload? That's so BS.

And Larry Guest is the other writer he called out. He loved Spurrier. The story I have heard is that their dust-up happened after Spurrier refused to concede a foot-long putt in a golf game and Guest missed it.

 

I'm not defending Spurrier. He's definitely in the wrong.

But in the court of public opinion -- not with journalists, bloggers, etc., but with USC supporters and fans -- he's going to win this one. Ron Morris is hated in Columbia by USC fans. Spurrier picked a fight with the most hated journalist in South Carolina. Ninety-nine percent of people who aren't involved with journalism are going to side with Spurrier.