The sports realm is one that exists largely on the emotions of the fans. There are players and coaches that people both love or hate, depending on their favorite team or country, and these passions are what drive the game.
What really drives the narrative in athletic competition are the villains — those participants who truly exist at the end of the spectrum. Every story needs a protagonist and an antagonist, and these are among the latter who keep things fresh and exciting.
The Athletic college football staff recently published its Mount Rushmore of college football villains. Writer Ari Wasserman had former Florida Gators head coach [autotag]Urban Meyer[/autotag] second on his list, while Mitch Light had [autotag]Steve Spurrier[/autotag] second on his list as well. There was also an honorable mention from one memorable player who passed through during the golden era.
Urban Meyer
“Who has a more complicated legacy than Meyer? On one hand, he is a three-time national championship-winning head coach. On the other, trouble arose during his tenures at Florida and Ohio State,” Wasserman begins.
“While he was at Florida, Ohio State fans loathed him because he represented the big, bad SEC and the team the Buckeyes couldn’t beat, including in the 2006 national title game. After Meyer departed — a time during which he was mocked incessantly for having what many considered to be a made-up medical condition — he went to Ohio State, a program disliked by fans around the nation.”
To be fair, when one is as good as Meyer was at winning games and rings, it becomes easy to hate them. But there was certainly a taint to his legacy.
“Meyer is unquestionably one of the most successful coaches of all time, but he is viewed by many as someone who broke rules along the way,” Wasserman notes. “He did a bunch of winning, and there were a bunch of off-the-field incidents, which followed him to his short stint in the NFL as the Jacksonville Jaguars’ coach. That’s quite the hate cocktail for fans looking to despise a person.”
Steve Spurrier
“Spurrier was a master at needling his opponents during his successful stints at Florida and South Carolina,” Light points out. “One of his best lines: ‘But the real tragedy was that 15 hadn’t been colored yet’ after a fire at a library at Auburn destroyed 20 books.”
Gators fans can remember quite a few of those Spurrierisms, including “Free Shoes University” and “You can’t spell ‘citrus’ without U-T.” The head ball coach was one of the most colorful personalities ever to walk the collegiate sidelines.
Honorable Mention to [autotag]Cam Newton[/autotag], who had some issues in Gainesville including felony charges for stealing a fellow student’s laptop. His success with Auburn will forever draw the ire of Florida fans.
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