Contract will continue to help bring in top recruits
Head football coach Steve Spurrier will receive a two-year contract extension that guarantees the man in the visor his job on the South Carolina sideline until 2017.
Spurrier, who makes $3.3 million a year coaching the Gamecocks, will not receive a pay raise as a result of the extension. The contract adjustment was recommended by President Harris Pastides and Athletics Director Ray Tanner and unanimously approved by the board of trustees Monday afternoon.
While Tanner did not rule out salary increases in the future, he said Spurrier was not interested in a raise.
“When we were talking about the extension of the contract, he actually interjected into the conversation that he’s been taken care of here, he’s been treated very fairly financially, and this was not a conversation about money, it was a conversation about the length of the contract,” Tanner said. Spurrier received a salary increase of $475,000 from the board last spring.
His original contract would have expired on Dec. 31, 2015. The extension makes the new expiration date Dec. 31, 2017.
Tanner said that the extension negotiation didn’t take long; he and Spurrier talked about it for only about a week.
In addition to the football program’s success during Spurrier’s tenure, recruiting was also taken into consideration.
“He was down in Florida recruiting, and we had a conversation about where we were,” Tanner said. “It sometimes can be difficult in the recruiting process when you have less than four or five years left on your contract, and certainly he’s deserving of that kind of contract.”
Tanner told the board that he believes the extension will help the program continue to nab top in-state prospects like Marcus Lattimore and Jadeveon Clowney.
The Gamecocks reached 10 regular season wins for the second consecutive season this year and had its first 11-win season last year with a Capital One Bowl victory against Nebraska. This year, the Gamecocks were selected to play the No. 19 Michigan Wolverines in the Outback Bowl on New Year’s Day. Under his current contract, Spurrier will earn a $100,000 bonus for leading the team to the bowl and another $150,000 supplement for a 10-win season. An 11th win against Michigan in Tampa, Fla., would net him an additional $200,000 bonus.
After the team’s fourth consecutive win against Clemson last month, Spurrier became USC’s all-time winningest coach with 65 games won.
“This is an unprecedented time of success both in terms of football performance and in terms of off the field accomplishments and character development,” Pastides said.
Despite these many accomplishments, Tanner said Spurrier sees more work yet to be done.
“He’s got thirty wins in the last three years, but he’ll tell you that he still has some things left he wants to accomplish and be a part of,” Tanner said.
Spurrier named his chief goal going forward — an elusive Southeastern Conference Championship — in a press release regarding the extension.
“We have achieved a lot of goals but have not yet won the SEC Championship,” he said in the release. “Hopefully, we can do that within the next couple of years.”
Tanner was unsure as to what Spurrier’s future with USC holds, but expressed hope that it could last longer than his contract’s five years.
“I know that he is not as young as he once was, but he’s in better shape than a lot of guys that are a lot younger, and maybe he’ll coach for a long time,” Tanner said. “He loves coaching football more than any coach I’ve been around in any sport. You never say never in this business.”