6 quick lessons on being a coach’s wife, as explained by Jerri Spurrier

College football wives are usually there from the beginning of coaches’ careers, and they’ve seen it all. They stand by coaches during wins and losses, navigate the hiring and firing, and a lot of times, raise a family, too.

So what exactly is dealing with all of that really like? I spoke with Jerri Spurrier, the Head Ball Coach Steve Spurrier’s wife of 52 years, to find out.

The Spurriers met at the University of Florida in the 1960s. Spurrier was a fraternity brother at Alpha Tau Omega. Jerri was part of a program called “little sisters” within the fraternity.

“I grew up, and all I had was sisters, and my grandmother, and my mother,” Jerri told me via phone interview. “So I was an ATO little sister, and it was just the best to be able to do that. And then when the pledges, when the guys pledge, the little sisters would get little brothers, I guess to keep them out of trouble.

“I guess I didn’t do a very good job of it,” she adds with a laugh. “But I had four little brothers, and Steve was one of them.”

The couple spent Steve’s last year at Florida as a newly married couple, which Jerri says was a special experience. She traveled with him to the Heisman Trophy ceremony, where he won in 1966.

“They had so many East-West games and all those wonderful games,” Jerri said. “Because we were married — they didn’t take girlfriends back then — I got to go to all of those. So I have all the memories that he does, just of all the great things that happened that year and the couple years after that.”

She dropped out of school to be with Spurrier that year, before going back and earning two degrees from Florida.

Spurrier got his first head coaching job with the USFL’s Tampa Bay Bandits in 1983. Before that, he spent time at Florida, Georgia Tech, and Duke, where he later earned his first collegiate head coaching job in 1987. After leading the Blue Devils to a 20-13 record over three seasons, the head job at Florida opened.

“Being back here is a dream come true,” Jerri said via the Sun Sentinel in 1990. “This is home, this is where we belong. It’s almost impossible to describe how nice it is to be back. We`re going to be here for a long time.”

In Gainesville, Spurrier gave their alma mater their first national title in 1996, as well as six conference titles. He finished with a 122-27 record. At the end of the 2001 season, he moved on.

Spurrier likes to remind us he never got fired. I asked Jerri if she ever worried about it, though.

“You know it’s funny I don’t think about that, and I don’t think I ever did,” Jerri said. “We just kind of took it with our coaches, we were together with all of our same coaches for such a long time, and I think we just didn’t worry about that.”

But she recently found a note she’d written to herself from back then.

“I remember one of them, I said, ‘we may not be here next year.’ And I don’t even know where I was when I wrote that, but I guess it did go through my mind at some point. Maybe that’s what the risk is.”

In January 2002, Spurrier took the Washington job. Coaching in the NFL was something he wanted to do, and the salary didn’t hurt. In his book, Head Ball Coach, he writes:

“It was the most money any coach had made at that time. And when somebody is waving a couple million under your nose as a signing bonus, it’s kind of tough to say ‘no’ or ‘I’ll wait.’”

Aside from the poor on-field performances during his two seasons in D.C., Jerri says the adjustment was a big one.

“The disappointing part for me was I tried to do what we had done at Florida for years,” Jerri said. “Like have Easter egg hunts and Halloween parties. And the NFL even then, that just wasn’t important to them. Getting their families together and having an Easter egg hunt was I guess college or high school or whatever, so it did make me sad.”

The culture in general was quite different.

“I had to wear heels a lot, which I never was used to,” Jerri said lightly. “I laughed and I said if I can’t wear my running shoes then I don’t want to go, and we pretty much stick to that. But we did have to. Mr. Snyder, there was a lot of things where you had to represent the team, and I did my best.”

“It was different from the beginning,” Jerri continued. “The money, everything about what the money does was different. It just was different, the stadium, and I had somebody that walked around with me. It was just weird. It was strange.

“It was the coaches’ boxes. I always sat in the stands at Duke and Florida — we always sat in the stands with our kids — but they had a box there, and you were supposed to be in it.”

In Head Ball Coach, Spurrier describes the South Carolina job as an opportunity to build something great at a program that had been at the lower tier of the SEC East for years. And he did — the Gamecocks had three straight 11-win seasons and an SEC East title in 2010.

“It was right and perfect, and it stayed that way,” Jerri said of Columbia. “We had just so many happy, happy years with wonderful people. We made a lot of friends, I got a degree from there — I just loved it. We just had wonderful times with our players and coaches. It was the best.”

The Spurriers were also surrounded by family during their 10 seasons in Columbia: all of Jerri’s children and grandchildren.

“I’ve always gone to school,” Jerri said. “With the Bandits, I went to Hillsborough Community College. At Carolina, since I had a degree, I just transferred and got the degree in psychology.”

Jerri has a passion for mental health and has plans to either go back to school yet again at Florida or work at UF’s wellness center.

Even now during her husband’s retirement from coaching, Jerri places emphasis on having time for herself.

“I have to have my time to write my letters and make my phone calls,” Jerri said. “And he knows that. So he leaves at 8:15, and then he goes and does stuff. He hits balls when he’s not at the university. But he knows, and it’s very — I should appreciate it more, I mean — because he does know that I need my time. But it’s a lot of adjustment.”

Throughout Coach Spurrier’s career, she went to practice everyday.

“They’re my players. They’re my boys,” Jerri said. “We started a parents association at Florida, and then we started one in South Carolina. [It] is just so special. The parents still get together all the time, they’re best friends, and forever are we. The parents association was a very, very important part of that whole situation.

“The parents who were from other states, we always took care of each others’ boys. It was just the way it should be. It was mothers and fathers who loved the boys and loved everybody else’s boys.”