Spurrier slams Columbia writer

In related news, four of the top seven stories listed as "Most Read" on The State's website, as of right now, are Morris columns.

 

Let's be honest, Spurrier was more upset that less than 24 hours after he benched Garcia the kid failed a piss test and was booted from school. That's why he lashed out today.

 

Inky: I'm sure that had something to do with it. I also think it was a combination of things.

We're journalists, and we look at things from a journalist's perspective. But look at it from Joe Q. Public's vantage point. South Carolina loses to Auburn and the headline on Morris' column is "In the end, Spurrier coached poorly." A week later, South Carolina curb-stomps Kentucky in, perhaps, Spurrier's best-coached game since coming to Columbia. The headline on Morris' column: "Offense better, but it was against Kentucky."

Now, I don't disagree one bit with either of those columns. But I like to think I'm a fairly reasonable fan of college football. Diehard Gamecock fans and people who work at South Carolina don't think like journalists do. They see, "Spurrier gets ripped because he lost to Auburn, then we beat the crap out of Kentucky and Spurrier gets no credit." That doesn't make it right, but that's the perspective people have after reading Ron Morris for years.

 

It had been "weighing on (Spurrier's) chest for some time." Apparently for seven months.

Seems as if Spurrier is overly concerned with the "negative guy over here that tries to hurt our football program." And if one seven-month-old untrue story is the "only thing (he) takes exception to," why does he make such a big deal out of it? Hmmmmmmm.....

 

They've all been laid off anyway.
They use the AP gamer and somebody live-tweets from Hooter's downtown.

 

I'm not familiar with all the nuances of the SEC or Spurrier--it might as well be on Mars but to me this strikes me as pure grandstanding.

If Spurrier had a real problem with Morris's work, why didn't he call a meeting and discuss his problems man to man? Not that it would have changed anybody's mind but at least there might be at an "agree to disagree" conclusion.

And I know this might be an unpopular opinion but if Spurrier was trying to cut Morris out of this or any other press conferences, why didn't all the other print guys give Spurrier a big FU and walk out of the press conference.

Just curious.

 

Spurrier has been grumbling about this off and on for months. Called the Charleston beat guy to respond to it within a day of it being published. Morris has returned fire with several columns that obviously had a personal edge to them. All of it led to this stupidity. As for "walking out" of the press conference, there wasn't one to walk out of - the guy didn't talk.

 

Umm yeah he did, after he went and did TV interviews he said he would come back and talk to the writers who are left.

 

Bottom line, it should've been handled differently. Spurrier wanted to make a statement and he did.
If Morris' story is wrong, he should be called on the carpet.
I see this as a pissing contest and no one wins.

 

The column can't be "wrong" because it was a column and it expressed the opinion (very mildly, actually, if you go back and read it) that he was poached from the team. Spurrier may disagree with that opinion, but that's life.

And given that Ellington was one of the top players -- perhaps the best player -- on the basketball team, it's fair to say that the basketball staff wasn't thrilled with his decision to play football, no matter what they say publicly.

As has been noted on this thread, that column in question was a very small part of the reason for yesterday's rant and going back and reading it will only makes Spurrier look more ridiculous.

 

The column seems pretty tame to me. The headline is worse and I don't think reflects the tone of the column. Spurrier overreacted IMO.

 

My understanding from some tweets I saw is that he came back, but Morris was still in the room. Then, he did one-on-one with prints guys in his office.

Don't know if that is really what happened, but that's what it sounded like.

EDIT: From The State's website. This pretty clears up what happen given the picture: http://www.gogamecocks.com/2011/10/11/164285/ggf-spurrier-presser.html