When South Carolina announced back in December that Steve Spurrier had agreed to a contract extension, it was reported that there would be no raise included in the tweaked deal.
As it turns out, that’s not even remotely the case.
USC’s Board of Trustees gave final approval Friday to Spurrier’s two-year contract extension as well as a $425,000 raise. Spurrier is now signed through the 2015 season and will make $3.3 million in 2012.
“We certainly appreciate our University Trustees, President and Athletics Director for their commitment to our coaching staff that keeps us very competitive in SEC coaching salaries,” said Spurrier. “We have an excellent group of coaches here that can really coach, recruit and represent the University of South Carolina in a first class manner.”
As intimated in his statement, Spurrier wasn’t the only Gamecock football coach to be taken care of by the board. The four assistants still on his coaching staff from the 2011 season were all on the receiving end of raises, and all of the Ol’ Ball Coach’s assistants were given two-year contracts.
Shifting some of the financial love over to his assistants came at Spurrier’s request.
""A key element of having a nationally-prominent program that competes for championships is having a top-notch coaching staff, and I think we have that in place at South Carolina,” athletic director Eric Hyman said in a statement. “We are fully aware of what is taking place in the marketplace and have made some contract adjustments accordingly. Specifically with football, we are extremely pleased that our program has been very competitive and are supportive of Coach Spurrier’s request to give his assistants multi-year contracts.”