The Southeastern Conference is conducting its pre-season Media Days event near Birmingham, this week.
Media Days are a pinch to rabid college football fans that it is not just a dream. College football games begin next month. The drought for that they love will soon become a downpour of pageantry, pomp and beautiful sun-drenched, Saturday afternoons. If the day games do not provide the fix, afternoons transition into night and loud, colorful and bright-light stadiums.
It is a game that anticipates new faces every year, while welcoming back the beloved.
And maybe, as Steve Spurrier ages a little, and the realization that his legend will not forever be tangible, he is being appreciated.
At Media Days this year, there seems to be a sense of reverence for the University of South Carolina Football Coach, who can evoke hate, just by being himself.
Spurrier has earned as much respect, if ever anyone has.
He has averaged more than 10 wins a year, in the last four years at South Carolina.
He finished the 2013 season ranked No. 4 in the nation. He has won three straight bowl games and beaten rival Clemson five years in a row. He has never had a losing season in nine years as the Gamecocks' coach.
But it was not always like that.
Even the media in Columbia SC flew hawk-like over Spurrier, waiting for a gaffe or a boast, that could be taken to run with. The local "media boys" not used to being upstaged, met Spurrier with eye-rolls, and a lack of belief that he could win at South Carolina.
Ron Morris, columnist for Columbia's The State newspaper, went so far as to compare Spurrier and the program to the child-rape scandal at Penn State. The ridiculous and unfair attacks by Morris were finally silenced by his employers, who saw he was losing a sense of reality in his desire to smother Spurrier's star.
Aside from a gratuitously confrontational media, there were bugaboos inside the institutional establishment that may have been working against Spurrier and success.
There was a case made in 2008, that USC football players were being targeted by police. A Spurrier-friendly USC Board member publicized the charge. But there were other status-guo board members who scoffed at the claims. Eventually the charges of unfair treatment of players was backed up by a State Law Enforcement Division (SLED) agent, and the targeting stopped.
The board members not supporting Spurrier are now gone.
And there is former USC Athletic Director Eric Hyman. Hyman did not hire Spurrier, and often seemed more intent on pleasing the AD community, more than working with his high-profile football coach.
Hyman left the USC program two years ago, to become AD at Texas A&M. Former USC Baseball Coach Ray Tanner is now the AD. He and Spurrier are kindred spirits in understanding a coach's challenges.
Through so many program-weakening obstacles, you have to believe Spurrier felt like quitting at times. Most would feel that way. But Spurrier persevered. He did not back down. He knows he is a winner, working toward that winning hand. He is seeing it to the end.
He has slain his demons. Those who have stood defiant against him now rest upon the ash heap.
Spurrier is still at the university, bigger and badder than ever. He is an example of a man who stood for what he believed in, and took on those who would steal what was his.
If only all of our leaders had the talent,character, and determination to do the right thing, despite the odds. If so, every South Carolinian would be the beneficiary. Because of his expert administration and talent, Gamecock fans are basking in Spurrier's aura - more-so than ever - as the dawn of a new gridiron season awaits.
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