Video Spotlight: Steve Spurrier on the Ed Sullivan Show

Growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, it was common to see college football players share the stage with some of the biggest names in entertainment and politics.

From Bob Hope and his annual television specials featuring football All-Americans yukking it up with the famed funny man to Vice President Gerald Ford attending John Cappelletti’s Heisman dinner, college football in those days was, perhaps, a bit more tightly woven into the fabric of American society than it is in these days.

The Ed Sullivan Show was a popular variety show that ran from 1948 to 1971. Among its most famous performances came from the likes of Itzhak Perlman, Elvis Presley, The Beatles and Jim Henson’s Muppets. It also featured plenty of sports stars, including Wilt Chamberlain, Muhammad Ali, Jackie Robinson and O.J. Simpson, to name just a few.

Check out this video clip from the Sullivan Show from Nov. 27, 1966, when a young University of Florida quarterback named Steve Spurrier (five days into his Heisman reign) makes a special appearance after Sullivan mistakenly leaves him out of an earlier All-American Football Team segment (Syracuse running back Floyd Little was mistakenly identified as Spurrier and Sullivan later mentions that Spurrier plays for the University of Miami):