Brethren in need overshadow game

For months everybody has been waiting for tonight. For some, it's all they've been able to think about.

For the moment, it seems so insignificant.

Sitting here under sunny skies with dry earth underneath our feet and a standing home to go return to at the end of the day, the much anticipated opening night of the 2005 college football season doesn't seem appropriate.

It seems so ... selfish.

Is it right to turn on the television and flip past the horrifying destruction suffered by our regional brethren in the Gulf Coast states to settle on ESPN's College GameDay from Columbia?

Is it OK to stand up and root, root, root for the home team at Williams-Brice Stadium when others are being evacuated from the Superdome to the Astrodome for shelter and a working toilet?

It's a sobering backdrop for tonight's collegiate kickoff. So sobering that the man many call "The Evil Genius" was the first to offer unsolicited prayers to the victims of Hurricane Katrina and wonder aloud where to send his check to aid the recovery.

"Our football game is not really all that important compared to the devastation that these people have suffered," Steve Spurrier said.

But life goes on where it can, and with that Spurrier segued into a typical assessment of his coaching debut with the South Carolina Gamecocks.

"We're ready to play as well as we can play," he said, "and we'll find out (tonight) just how good that is."

Tonight brings together two renowned coaches who haven't really been on this kind of collegiate stage since the year of South Carolina's chosen theme song - 2001. Each of their individual odysseys took them through the pro ranks, brief periods of exile, unfamiliar failures and ultimately to programs that long for the successes these coaches were once accustomed to.

And neither Spurrier nor Central Florida's George O'Leary will tell you that their recent histories matter a bit tonight on national television.

"Guys are worried about who's lined up across from them, not about me or Steve Spurrier or who's coaching them," O'Leary said.

Said Spurrier: "This game is about our players against their players. I know some times the

coaches get way too much spotlight of the game. I wish it wasn't that way but I understand that's how it's going to be."

When you're showcasing two programs with little historical significance, including one coming off a winless season, the spotlight naturally is on the coaches.

In their own ways, O'Leary and Spurrier are coming back from career defrockings. That's the national appeal of this opener.

After success at Georgia Tech that provided him the dream job opportunity he worked his whole career for, O'Leary lasted less than a week at Notre Dame before an ancient and irrelevant lie on his rsum got him run out on a rail. His penance is being served at the loneliest outpost in talent-rich Florida. His first season at Central Florida started with a heart attack and ended at 0-11.

"I never bring up the 0-11," O'Leary said this week. "The media does enough of it."

After success at Florida that provided him the dream opportunity and salary he worked his whole career for, Spurrier lasted two trying seasons with the NFL's Washington Redskins before he humbly retreated. His penance is now being served on the isolated fringe in the talent-rich SEC East. His first season begins a quest to close the gap on the 17 games below .500 the Gamecocks are in 111 years.

The best part about it so far?

"What's fun and neat here is when we coach a particular way nobody says, 'You can't do it that way in the NFL,' " Spurrier said. "I haven't heard that since I've been here."

Tonight, both O'Leary and Spurrier are looking for their first wins on this journey back into the spotlight. Those of us fortunate enough to be there will watch and cheer.

While we enjoy it and so casually spend our money on what will certainly be a guilty pleasure, remember for at least a moment how lucky we are.

And when it's over and everyone goes home on fumes headier than $3-a-gallon gas, let's all be like Spurrier and send a check for something truly important.

Reach Scott Michaux at (706) 823-3219 or scott.michaux@augustachronicle.com.