Thirty years ago, way back in 1990, Steve Spurrier made a vow to his very first Florida Gators football team, and even today he keeps that promise to anybody and everybody who will listen.
That 1990 team, quarterbacked by Shane Matthews, finished 6-1 and atop the 10-team SEC standings, but the Gators were ineligible to play in a bowl game due to a mid-season ruling handed down by the NCAA. According to SEC bylaws at the time, if a team was banned from a bowl game, it was ineligible to compete for a conference championship.
Spurrier and his UF coaches and players were not a part of the NCAA's decision, which stemmed from former coach Galen Hall allegedly arranging a $360 child support payment for one of his players. To this day, Spurrier counts the 1990 team among the "seven" SEC championships he won as UF's coach instead of "six" conference titles he's officially credited with in the SEC record books.
"I was talking to Shane Matthews about that 1990 team just the other day," says Spurrier, the first coach in UF's previously unremarkable history to ever win a conference championship. "We talked about how that team paved the way for all the rest of 'em. Somebody had to be the first to do it and go out and win a conference championship, and that team did it. They could have tossed in the towel when they found out they wouldn't be recognized as the champions. I told them then, 'I tell you what, if we win it, I'll recognize you as champions for the rest of my life.' "
And, so, he has.
I was a young, upstart reporter 30 years ago on my first major beat covering Spurrier's first UF team. I caught up with the Head Ball Coach the other day and we reminisced about that 1990 team and discussed a number of other topics during a wide-ranging interview. Here are highlights of our conversation:
