Few things in life are as tempting as the short view. It's so alluring because we all want to be the first to say a thing everyone recognizes as true. We all sprint to be the first to spot a trend, notice a weakness or, most often, state the obvious. We pat ourselves on the back when we're first to call in, post a thread, write a column or hit the air.
At least 12 times a year, every fan, beat writer, columnist, Internet blogger, player, coach, announcer and Boy Scout is bound to inform someone else how he or she believed the game went down. It is a compulsion, an obsession to commiserate in the immediacy of the moment's strong emotion with those of like mind through the offering of their (not so) humble opinions.
I say all this because had I written this column Saturday night after the Tennessee loss, this likely would have been a far different piece. My postgame notes beg me to draw comparisons to USC teams of the past, to other underachieving performances, to other disappointments.
And yet, even as the drone of hyperbolic callers and fatigued hosts stretched into the night, I began thinking of a conversation I had on the field prior to the game.
There, I had the opportunity to speak with Steve Spurrier's older brother Graham. He drives to every USC game, home and away, from the family's hometown of Johnson City, Tenn. I was impressed by his overall enthusiasm and palpable optimism about the future of the program. We were talking about the likely outcome of the coming game, and he shrugged off the idea of it being overly important.
"He's still building," Spurrier said of his younger brother. "He doesn't have everything he wants yet or everything he's going to get.
"Two years. Two years from now, that's when you'll start to see him competing for championships. USC fans better learn to get used to winning."
Spurrier and I talked about their relationship, and I asked him how long he really thought Spurrier would coach in Columbia.
"He's retiring here; he'll never coach anywhere else," Spurrier said matter-of-factly. "He loves it down here, the school, the people. He's not going anywhere. He loves the fans and wants to win here. No matter what happens tonight, the future is exciting to me. I can't wait to watch him do it."
There's a lot of wisdom in the elder Spurrier's approach. In the long view, the result of the marathon that is reasoned judgment, USC fans have to recognize that it never has had a coach, a winner, of Spurrier's magnitude. Appreciate how much he did last year with so little, appreciate how out of the horror of a one-touchdown-in-two-games offensive performance to start the season he created a team that can challenge the nation's elite units to within a touchdown ‹ and that with the breaks going against them.
Two more years. It seems like such a long time, though in football years it's the blink of an eye. For a major head college football coach, if you're absolutely horrible you still will get five years of support and hundreds of thousands of dollars before anyone cans you. Besides president of the United States, what other job allows a person to fail so miserably for such a long time before action is taken to right the course?
It is so because the job is so difficult ‹ building the right mix of talent, chemistry and coaching is extraordinarily hard, fraught as it is with all manner of demons: injuries, academic casualties, drug test failures, transfers and the inevitable trickle of suspensions and/or arrests.
This is why Spurrier should be so appreciated. He has climbed these mountains at places no one thought you could win championships: Duke and Florida. He knows how to do it and, what's more, is motivated and dedicated to doing it here. So sure, take the short view. Get ticked that USC lost to Tennessee, kick the dirt and mutter about how USC always seems to lose the big games.
I'm with Graham. I'm taking the long view. Remember that, when USC is in the conference championship game two years from now, you heard it here first.
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