Steve Spurrier recalls considering suiting up for Tampa Bay Bandits while coaching

Steve Spurrier played quarterback for quite awhile but he almost played while he was coaching in the 1980s.

Back then, Spurrier landed his first head coaching gig with the Tampa Bay Bandits in the USFL. He coached the team for three seasons, going 35-19.

But in 1983, due to injuries, he briefly considered suiting up as a player-coach to go under center for the Bandits. Heck, he was only 37 years old!

“I may have had an opportunity to do that,” Spurrier said on WDAE. “John Reaves got hurt his first year. We were going real well and he got hurt about the middle of the year and so forth. But we had Jimmy Jordan there. He came in and played very well. (Someone asked me) why don’t you see that? Because back then, I was 37 like you said. I demonstrated throwing the ball every day in practice.

“Probably through a little bit better than the quarterbacks back in those days, but I decided to stay on the sidelines and let Jimmy Jordan play. Jimmy played very well, when he got a chance to play there.” 

Before Spurrier became a college head coach, he led Tampa Bay to two playoff appearances in his three years. In 1987, he became the head coach of Duke and three years later, started his legendary career at Florida.

Spurrier came back to a familiar state and won six SEC titles with the Gators. Not to mention he won the 1996 national championship.

“But anyway, I was 37, there were three other coaches that were 37 at the time and one of them lasted half a season, another lasted one season and another one only last six games. All three of those guys never got a chance to be a head coach again,” Spurrier said. “And I was somehow fortunate enough to get 31 years in. 

“I realized how fortunate and blessed I was to be around a good organization, excellent players. We had good attitudes all the way around. So it was a fun experience to get started off on the right note there with the Tampa Bay Bandits.”

Spurrier wasn’t a Hall of Fame quarterback but he was a Hall of Fame coach. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2017 for his years at Duke, Florida and South Carolina.

He got back into pro coaching with the Orlando Apollos of the defunct AAF in 2019. Now at that point, he was almost 74 years old.

Don’t think Spurrier was going to play quarterback in that league.