Steve Spurrier back with Florida Garors as ambassador

Steve Spurrier is looking forward to his role as Ambassador and Consultant for the Florida Gators athletic department.

“It’s a wonderful invitation and hopefully I can do something to help the Gators.” Spurrier said by conference call on Friday.

Florida athletic director Jeremy Foley announced the move to bring Spurrier back into the Gator fold earlier Friday morning. Spurrier had been serving a similar ambassador role at South Carolina after resigning as head coach of the Gamecocks in October of 2015.

“It’s a great day for the Gator Nation to be able to welcome Coach Spurrier back home,” Foley said. “He has served as a tremendous ambassador to the University and the athletic department for 50-plus years and it’s only fitting that at this point in his career, he is back in Gainesville. Being a Gator has always meant so much to Coach Spurrier, but it means just as much to us (to) have him come home.”

Spurrier will wear a number of hats (or shall we say visors) in the new role, including public speaking, fundraising and as a sounding board to Florida football coach Jim McElwain and his staff. He’ll have an office at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium next to Florida associate athletic director for communications Steve McClain.

“I’ll be in and out mostly,” Spurrier said. “Coach Mac has welcomed me to come to the football offices a little bit. But I can assure you I’ll stay out of coach’s way. I’m not going to be in coaches meetings or things like that, just talking a little ball with Coach Mac, Coach Nuss (offensive coordinator Doug Nussmeier).”

Asked about the state of the Florida football program under McElwain, Spurrier said: “They had an excellent year last year to win the Eastern Division. They weren’t really picked to last year, so I think Coach Mac and his guys did a really good job, an excellent job. Knowing Coach Mac he wants more than just Eastern Division, so they’re looking forward (to) growing this program to one of the best in the nation. They want this program to win SEC championships like we’ve done in the past.”

Spurrier also let slip that Luke Del Rio has a leg up on the battle on the starting quarterback position at UF, “Del Rio seems to the be the starter. He is the starter now. We’ll see how it all works out.”

McElwain said he’s looking forward to visiting with Spurrier and picking his brain on a number of football and non-football related issues.

“It’s a credit to Jeremy to get him back home where he belongs,” McElwain said. “More than anything I look forward to actually talking to him and being around him rather than just saying hello to his statue on my way to work every day.”

Spurrier also made clear he’s not involved at all in the Gator athletic department search, which is being conducted by former UF trustee Manny Fernandez.

“Oh, I’m not involved in it whatsoever,” Spurrier said. ” If they asked me, I would tell Jeremy he ought to hang around two or three more years. But I don’t know exactly where the search is right now.”

For Spurrier, the return to Gainesville and his alma mater at Florida is a natural transition. It’s where he met his wife, Jerri, 50 years ago. It’s where he won a Heisman Trophy as a senior quarterback in 1966. It’s where he coached the Gators to six SEC titles and their first national title in school history in 1996, leading Florida to a 52-20 win over rival Florida State in the Sugar Bowl.

Spurrier and his wife spent part of Friday looking at houses in Gainesville. He’ll move from his home in Columbia, S.C., in the coming months. The Spurrier family also maintains a vacation home in Crescent Beach.

“We’re looking forward to living here and Crescent Beach, Florida,” Spurrier said. “It’s a pretty good two spots on this earth and we’re fortunate enough to get to live in both of them.”

Spurrier, 71, stepped down from coaching during the 2015 season in his 11th season at South Carolina. He finished his career with a record of 228-89-2 (.718) as a collegiate head coach. He has no plans to return to the sidelines.

“I think I’ve been finished, when I resigned I said I might be a volunteer at a high school or something like that,” Spurrier said. ” I’m not sure exactly what happens five, 10 years from now but I certainly believe this could be my last, not coaching gig, consultant gig, or whatever. Who knows?”

Spurrier went out of his way to thanks the fans and administration at South Carolina for his last 11 years of employment there. Asked if he felt there would be any hard feelings from South Carolina fans, Spurrier responded: ” I’m hoping most people understand, though it is a fair question. I hope they understand that this is my alma mater, this is where I’ve lived so much and so forth, and the opportunity to come back down … and I’m not sure the job I had up there was a longtime job. It was very nice of the president and athletic director to let me hang around there the past seven months. I don’t know if any of us saw that as a long-time job.”

Not wanting to be a “retired dude” and do nothing, Spurrier passed on an opportunity to go into TV because he said he wanted to feel part of a team. Talks with Foley and McElwain intensified throughout July, which led to Spurrier accepting the UF ambassador position.

In early June, Florida Field was renamed Steve-Spurrier-Florida Field in his honor, with the unveiling of his namesake set for the season opener against Massachusetts on Sept. 3 at 7:30 p.m.

“That was a bit overwhelming and certainly I was very humbled when Jeremy called me and said your name’s going to be in front of Florida Field on the stadium,” Spurrier said. ” Again, that’s the nicest, biggest, most amazing honor I’ve ever received, so I really appreciate all the Gators that were responsible for that. It will be a little bit emotional at that time.”