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Steve Spurrier showed everyone how to quit with style

By Jonathan Adams

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Steve Spurrier retired in the middle of the season and there are sounds of outrage throughout the country. When is it okay to quit?

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You can tell a lot about a person by how they react to news, sports or otherwise. Late Monday night, as word began to trickle out about Steve Spurrier’s retirement people began to react.

At first, the majority of people seem to simply reflect on the memories of Spurrier as a coach. The reactions have since continued and in recent days many have accused Spurrier of quitting on the team. It reminded me that a nostalgic mindset still exists with memories of yesteryear entrenched in our brain.

There was a time when you found a place of employment and worked the same job for fifty straight years. With rare exception, that time has passed. Good hearted people kept jobs they despised because that is just what you did. It was all under the false pretense of loyalty, hard work and dedication. While there were certainly some that avoided change because they loved their job, there were others who simply stayed the course because they believed that it was the right thing to do.

There is something to be said for doing the same thing for most of your life, but there is also something admirable when a person is brave enough to admit their time is up.

In the literal sense of the word, Steve Spurrier did quit on his team. He walked out the door. Things have not seemed quite right since that weird impromptu press conference Spurrier called over the offseason to deny he was retiring any time soon. This South Carolina team is not what it used to be, and Spurrier recognized that a change needed to be made. No one had to pry the program out of his hands. He made the call. He quit because the program needed him to.

If you want to see the opposite approach, look no further than Orlando where George O’Leary refuses to relinquish control and is squeezing the life out of the once promising UCF program. You have to know when it is your time and have the fortitude to admit it.

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The same people calling Spurrier a quitter are the type of people who recommend you to break up with someone after the holidays even when you know the relationship is beyond repair. What good does delaying the inevitable do? Did people really want Spurrier just to go through the motions for the rest of the season and kill any sort of momentum that now has a chance to be birthed?

As a society, we need to do a better job of quitting when it is the right thing to do. I realize this philosophy is not going to make it on a Nike workout shirt, but it needs to be said. Stop making your kid play the tuba for the fifth straight year when they realized after trial and error that they hate playing the instrument. For everyone’s sake, let them quit so they can find the thing they love to do.

There is a time for pushing through. A time for gutting it out and reaching the finish line. There’s also moments where you join the Head Ball Coach in saying, “Well…Didn’t have it anymore. I’m gonna go play golf.”

Spurrier gave South Carolina 11 great years in an era where coaches change schools every two to three seasons.

Call Spurrier a quitter. Just make sure you understand the reasons.

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