Univ. of South Carolina Coach, Steve Spurrier Against Confederate Flag

[Yavin4]

Univ. of South Carolina football coach, Steve Spurier, is against having the confederate flag hang over the state capitol:

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=2837735

Is he against it on principle or is that the flag hurts his recruitment efforts? Your thoughts?

[NightWatcher]

1. I still hate Spurrier (UGA Dawg here)

I'm anti confed flag. I still hate Spurrier. He could cure cancer and I'd still hate the coach.

[Clark2008]

Me, too, NightWatcher.

TN Volunteer here.

[NightWatcher]

7. I hate Fulmer too, but I'm glad that we can put our differences aside

and attack Spurrier,

Kidding, rather a DU Vol than a Freeper Dawg.

[frogcycle]

4. agreed

UT Vol here

but (grudgingly) i admire this position.

[CottonBear]

6. Fellow Dawg here too! I hate the Gators and USC. I agree w/ Spurrier on this topic. n/t

[Dawgs]

22. Don't hate him - hate Florida.

Always respected Spurrier. Well, actually I hated him when he was at Florida.

[ElizabethDC]

25. Go Gators!

Oh, sorry.

[Dawgs]

26. Hey, hey, hey!!

It's bad enough I see that on local sports message boards. I don't need to see it here.

;-)

[Stuckinthebush]

2. The former

I'd imagine that most recruits aren't thinking about what flag is flying over the State capitol.

Spurrier seems like a no-BS kind of guy. He calls it like he sees it.

[CottonBear]

3. I think he's against it on moral grounds. Colin Cowherd (sp?) discussed this topic

on his ESPN radio show this morning. BTW, Colin discusses politics as well as sports. He seems to be a reasonable and intelligent guy. I enjoy listening to him. Colin knows Spurrier from his time living in Tampa, FL. Dan Patrick and Keith Olberman may well discuss this topic on their ESPN radip sports show this afternoon.

BTW, I'm a native Southerner and I totally agree with Coach Spurrier.

[autorank]

5. Both! And outstanding work on his part speaking up.

If this guy has a 'notion' or more, he'll express it. He's famously impatient. He took a shot
at coaching the Redskins and just couldn't mesh with the owner, who is a fool. I liked him and
enjoy watching his involvement in close games. The guy's intense. He's been around, worked
closely with black and other people of color his whole life. I suspect he's just disgusted with
the stupidity of it and pissed off that he has to bring people in who will be offended.

Steve Spurrier v. institutional racism in SC

I'll take Spurrier and give you odds;)

[autorank]

12. btw,We'll gladly take Spurrier at the real USC & check out our flag

With all due respect



Here's our flag:

[Flarney]

20. Hey! South Carolina was a college before you were even a state!!!

And before you get too excited about your national football championships, remember we recently won the national equestrian title! :-)

Aside from the fact that you guys would destroy us, I still think it would be cool for our two teams to square off...you know, the Trojans vs. the 'Cocks! ;-)

[autorank]

23. rofl Well, you guys do have the etter nick name;) What do you do with a. Trojan?

Trojan? Won't go there...

You know, you are right about statehood. In fact we started out as a Republic dedicated to worshiping a Bear of all things (we've always been different). But wasn't SC part of those five military regions during Reconstruction, at which point we were already a state 9/9/1850. So from 1850 to 1865 you were ahead of us, but then you became something else;) oh, who cares.

There should be a playoff game for the initials...or, losing team buys drinks. That would better.

Give Spurrier a few years and you'll be up there, maybe "higher" than us (nah, we're in California)

[sweetpotato]

24. Gamecocks vs Trojans happened

When I was in school eons ago -

I'm from South Carolina, went to USC (the original one) and the bumperstickers for the USC/USC game were very vulgar - "Trojans can't hold our Cocks" is one I remember.

[autorank]

28. That's pretty direct.

I suspect the South Carolina fans are like the UC Berkley fans who drive Stanford nuts every
year with their raunchy behavior...cheers with the "f" word, band on the field to help Berkley
win on the last play of a game (it was allowed;).

This stuff should be fun.

[frogcycle]

16. and of course he's not a local

born/raised in Miami Beach, which is not the "old south" of the "forget, hell!" crowd.

kudos to him for this position

This is a timely move on Spurrier's part.

Progress tends to come in spurts - maybe just 60 years after Jackie Robinson entered the bigs, sports can again take the lead in social change.

C. Vivian Stringer and her Scarlet Knights acquitted themselves exceptionally in a firestorm not of their making and have had an influence on many of the rich and powerful


Imagine some 10-15 years into the future when 6'4" New York City native Nicky Anosike gets a position as a US Attorney for New York -

http://utladyvols.cstv.com/sports/w-baskbl/mtt/anosike_nicky00.html

"Nicky is pursuing a major in sociology/criminal justice and additional majors in political science and legal studies...Hopes to become a lawyer after her playing career."

Last I heard Nicky's GPA was something like 3.7/4.0.

The dinosaurs will gradually die off, and our grandchildren will marvel at stories of today's racism as we do of slave ships.

[Elwood P Dowd]

17. Born in Miami but the family moved to East Tennessee when he was a child.

He was a star athlete in Johnson City, Tennessee when he signed with Florida in the early 1960s. His brother still lives in East Tennessee.

[frogcycle]

19. oh, right, I forgot that

have to avoid Johnson City next time I'm in Tn

[LisaM]

8. I think the sports world is more advanced on race issues

than the general population. My belief is that it's because sports are so integrated - coaches and players spend a lot of time with people from other races. Look at how quickly fans and other sports media reacted to Rush Limbaugh's comments; it was also a SPORTS reference that brought Imus down.

[northzax]

9. who cares which?

most likely a combination of both. Face it, in 2007, many good and decent people are frankly embarrassed by the presence of a symbol of treason and sedition. the convoluted arguements of heritage and tradition simply don't carry that much weight. most people associate the flag with treason and racism, and most people have given up that ghost decades ago (or like to think they have) the confederate battle flag belongs in a museum, not in public.

but as for individuals? you want to fly it, please do, it will let me know what decade you are living in. you can say it means anything you want it to, but to me it means the people who took up arms against my great-great grandfather, killing him and his brother in the prime of their lives. fly the flag, and the image of a black man hanging from a tree comes to mind. it's an ugly symbol of an ugly past, and to embrace it signifies to others that you support that ugly past.

[Flarney]

10. Go Gamecocks!!!

Please Steve, if anybody can get the rednecks in this town to lose that sorry flag, it's you!

[tularetom]

11. I've disliked that MF'er for 30 years

Guess I'll have to reconsider.

[bluestateguy]

13. Good for him

The flag should be relegated to private forms of display (on car bumper stickers or private homes, etc.), not taxpayer funded institutions.

[Dhalgren]

14. Go Coach! We need more people in the south speaking out against

the stupidity of flying that flag over publicly funded buildings. I heard Coach Spurrier on the radio and he said that he had been told not to say anything about this issue, but he said he was going to say it, anyway. He said it was an embarrassment to the state, to the University, and to the People of South Carolina to have that "damned flag" flying and it should be taken down and forgotten. Keith Olbermann said that it was particularly encouraging to hear someone with that accent saying these things, and I agree.

[Yavin4]

15. I Have Learned Two Things From This Thread

1) There are a lot of sane, forward thinking, progressives in the South who agree with Spurrier.

and

2) You still hate his guts, just a little less so.

[frogcycle]

18. my dad used to rail against that flag

he was raised in Tn. in a segregated era, did not have animosity toward African Americans, but definitely had been raised to believe in the usual stereotypes

the display of that flag infuriated him

he'd say "it's the battle flag of a defeated enemy of the United States" and insist it was anti-American to display it.

He also railed against anyone he thought was "still fighting the civil war"

If he were still alive, we'd be discussing how to reconcile this position taken by Spurrier with our gut-level animosity toward all things Spurrier. We'd have a lot of fun with it, and grudgingly acknowledge Spurrier was ok - just this once.

[Flarney]

21. I agree about it being a treasonous flag...

...I live in Columbia where the flag flies every day in front of the capitol building (it actually came off of the dome a few years back in a "compromise"), and it amazes me that I don't hear that position more often...I point it out whenever the issue comes up. "Heritage, not hate"...yeah, more like "Heritage of hate."

We'll get there one day...

[Blue_Tires]

27. he does have a point