Maybe Steve Spurrier was looking at his bank balance when he got his grand idea. Or maybe he just got the first check of a new deal that will pay him at least $2.8 million this year alone.
Whatever, Spurrier must have been feeling a bit guilty over his embarrassment of riches. Is there any other reason to decide after all these years that it’s time to toss out a few crumbs for the players who have made him and his fellow college coaches rich?
Go ahead and call Spurrier’s idea to give players $300 a game out of his own pocket laughable. A lot of people already have, though surely none of them toil on the offensive line for Spurrier’s South Carolina team.
But who are they to judge when it may make the Ol’ Ball Coach sleep better at night?
The odds that Spurrier will ever have to actually reach into his own pocket to help his players make their car payments are slim, of course. Proposals to pay college players more than tuition and room and board have been summarily dismissed over the years by the very people who make their living off what has historically been free labor.
So Spurrier had little to worry about financially when he suggested that there should be a little something extra for players whose only reward now for filling up stadiums and generating television deals worth untold millions is the vague promise of a piece of sheepskin after they put in the necessary four years of service.
Though several of his fellow Southeastern Conference coaches signed onto the concept, it has no chance of passing muster with those who actually run college football.
