04/19/24
July 22, 2011
Steve Spurrier arrested?: Earlier this spring, South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier was led away in handcuffs to make a point.
It might just be that I hate Spurrier with the light from a thousand suns, but this is just making light of shoddy police work. There was no reason to handcuff Clowney to ask him questions. And, no one should excuse police for this kind of thing. It should piss people off that this happens.
posted by bperk at 11:48 AM on July 22, 2011
I had a similar reaction as bperk. Ha ha, racial profiling!
posted by holden at 12:24 PM on July 22, 2011
I'm in with them above. I think calling it shoddy police work is being charitable.
And this didn't happen in Greeleyville, it happened in Columbia, a college town. Not that Columbia is New York or San Francisco, but it's downright cosmopolitan compared to a lot of other places in SC.
If you're in police work in a multi-faceted municipality like that, you should have reasonable familiarity with a wide variety of individuals, especially in that age group.
And enough strategies for handling people and situations so that you don't go to using restraint as your first order of business.
Spurrier's an idiot for pulling that stunt. A more classic Spurrier move would have been to suggest that the officers are working in the wrong town. He could have opined that if it's more sports-related law enforcement opportunities they want, they should have been pulling shifts in Gainesville during the years when Coach Meyer was committed to running a "clean program".
I haven't seen that Clowney has decommitted to SC after this. I wouldn't blame him for doing so, if he were able to.
He'd be a force of nature on the TCU defense.
posted by beaverboard at 04:25 PM on July 22, 2011
Spurrier's an idiot for pulling that stunt.
He did it for Jadeveon Clowney's benefit to keep his prized recruit -- ranked No. 1 in the nation in some eyes -- from becoming alienated right after he got to South Carolina.
Clowney was OK with being stopped and released by police during a robbery investigation but sounded mortified it made the media: "I am just upset because there is stuff on the news about this. I didn't do nothing wrong."
posted by rcade at 04:35 PM on July 22, 2011
I think Spurrier handled it well, in classic Steve Spurrier style. He quickly ensured that any rumors regarding Clowney being cuffed were defused.
While the details from the story make it appear that the police over-reacted, I think you do have to keep in mind that the police were responding to an armed robbery call, and that Clowney did try to elude the police. They handcuffed hm, searched him, and quickly released him. I would guess that if there was truly some aggrievious act committed by the police that some lawyer would have been all over it. Since Jesse Jackson hasn't shown up, I'll give the guys in blue a pass, with just a stern warning not to be so hasty with the cuffs next time.
posted by dviking at 05:43 PM on July 22, 2011
Spurrier's one of the great showmen in the game, and he's turned South Carolina into a pretty good team that might shock everybody and win an SEC title. I've been wondering if Florida should have sought him to return after Meyer flamed out.