College Football Hall of Famers Steve Spurrier and Frank Beamer will coach the 2020 Polynesian Bowl, the game announced Wednesday.
Spurrier will lead Team Makua (Mountain), while Beamer will head Team Makai (Ocean).
“Hawai’i in January to coach in the Polynesian Bowl is about as good as it gets,” Spurrier said in a statement. “I’m looking forward to being part of this amazing experience.”
“The Polynesian Bowl is an incredible celebration of culture and football,” Beamer added. “It’s going to be a lot of fun coaching the best high school players in paradise.”
Founded in 2017, the Polynesian Bowl is a high school all-star game pitting 100 of the top seniors in the nation. The 2020 rosters have already been set, featuring players from across the continental United States (though, as one would suspect, leaning heavily on Hawaii and the West Coast).
The Polynesian Bowl traditionally asks veteran coaches to lead its respective teams. Jim Zorn and Mike Bellotti served as head coaches for the 2019 game, Dick Vermeil and Terry Donahue did in 2018, and Dick Tomey and June Jones served as the inaugural head coaches.
Beamer has been retired since 2015 after a 46-year coaching career and a 35-season run as the head coach at Murray State and Virginia Tech, where he went a combined 280-143-4. The 72-year-old currently lends a hand as a special assistant to Virginia Tech AD Whit Babcock while also serving the final tour of a 3-year term on the College Football Playoff selection committee.
Spurrier, 74, retired from full-time coaching in 2015 after 38 years on the sidelines and 31 as head coach of the USFL's Tampa Bay Bandits, Duke, Florida, the Washington Redskins and South Carolina; he collected a collegiate record of 228-89-2 while leading Florida to the 1996 national championship.
Since leaving South Carolina, Spurrier, like Beamer, has returned to Florida as an ambassador for Gator athletics and served as head coach for the AAF's Orlando Apollos.
The 2020 Polynesian Bowl will be held Jan. 18, 2020 at Hawaii's Aloha Stadium and broadcast nationally on CBS Sports Network.
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