Old weirdo and known media manipulator Steve Spurrier had an improptu chat with reporters at halftime of the Arkansas-South Carolina basketball game today, and did one somewhat odd thing, followed by one extremely odd thing: He asked the reporters a college football trivia question—a self-serving one, naturally, or it would have been extra weird—and when a couple answered correctly, he...rewarded them with envelopes full of money. That is not best practices.
Sports Talk has the audio. A rough transcription of the relevant portion:
But, anyway. That was about it. Uh, I came across a certain statistical trivia that I wanted to ask you guys today, Rick (?) Alright, uh, how many teams, college teams in the BCS conferences—you know, the major conferences—how many have won eleven or more the last two years? Does any one of you know that answer? I got a bonus for you if anybody knows the answer. How many—
[various answers]
Anybody else wanna guess? Can you name all that have done it? Eh?!
[someone answers correctly]
You got 'em, there're four, and for South Carolina to be in the same neighborhood—Oregon, Stanford, Alabama, South Carolina are the only four that won eleven or more, two years. So that's sorta neat! Somebody gave me that statistic today. I thought uh, I thought you guys would want to know that. [Someone says, "Impressive."] Next time, y'all do some of that work. But that was sort of neat, yeah.
He answers some other, unrelated questions—Marcus Lattimore is ahead of schedule in his rehab, if you were wondering—and then, he walked off, apparently. Before leaving, he handed each of the reporters that knew the answer to his trivia $100, in an envelope. Darryl Slater, a South Carolina beat reporter, tweeted the following:
The Old Ball Coach has matured into the Grandfatherly Ball Coach, and is now treating reporters like recently bar mitzvah'd eighth graders. It was only a matter of time.
h/t Kevin M.