Shane Beamer, South Carolina Head Football Coach

Throughout the 60s and 70s, cops hunted down key figures of the Dixie Mafia, including its enigmatic ringleader, Kirksey Nix. I'm interested in making money.

I'm not interested in hurting people. Fifteen years into Kirksey's life sentence, the Dixie Mafia was practically folklore, but that would soon change. I'm Jed Lipinski. This is Gone South, a documentary podcast from C-13 Originals, a Cadence 13 studio. Season 2, The Dixie Mafia.

Available now on the Odyssey app, or wherever you get your podcasts. What makes your skin crawl, no matter how absurd? I want to know. Tails without fur on them, such as rats or opossums. I'm Larry Mullins, the host of a new podcast called Your Weirdest Fears. You send me your fear.

I'm just so weirded out about the texture and how they can just move around and flop. And then I go to the experts to learn how to overcome them. Listen and subscribe to Your Weirdest Fears on the Odyssey app, or wherever you get your podcasts from. Coach, first off, congratulations. I would ask you how you're doing, but I think I know the answer to that one. Thanks.

Appreciate you having me on. I'm definitely doing a lot better than I was after that Florida game a few weeks ago. How do you put the last two weeks into perspective?

Good question. One, I would say college football. I mean, just every Saturday's different. And then I would also say it just goes to show about the toughness, the resiliency and the type of team we have in Columbia. We certainly did not show that against Florida three weeks ago, but proud of our guys and how they responded and came back and certainly responded the right way. Played great these last two weeks, to say the least. Why didn't this team wilt under pressure? Because late in the season you get blown out by Florida, you have two tough games on the schedule around the horizon. Your team had every reason to quit, but that's not how you guys built this thing.

Yeah, no. And that's it. It's how they're built, were built. I know it's easy and cliché, but I think it goes back to the offseason and the way we work in the waiting room and the way that we try to come together as a team from a closeness standpoint. And all the adversity we try and put our guys through in the offseason and in the summertime because you're going to certainly deal with adversity during the season.

And then there's this great belief in one another. You don't do what we did these last two weeks if you don't believe in each other, believe in what we as coaches are asking them to do. And we talk all the time that when adversity hits, that's when we need to get closer and stronger as a team and really feel like we did the last couple weeks in a show with the way that our guys played.

It also has to help when your quarterback is as tough as tough could be. And what he did the last two weeks, that was just absolutely phenomenal. You had to feel great for him. Yeah, really happy for him. He works really, really hard. He's a great young man. He's a competitor. He's tough mentally and physically. And I was seeing a lot of the stuff that he did in these games the last couple weeks.

I was seeing it in practice and it just wasn't showing up always on Saturdays. But I know how important it is to Spencer Rattler and really proud of him. Of how he dealt with criticism throughout the year and never let it affect him. He just always came back to work and tried to get better each and every week. And when I got a chance to talk to him before the start of the season and we threw the kitchen sink at him about Oklahoma and we talked about that and then going out of South Carolina, you could tell he was just so plugged in, was so motivated, and he didn't let any of that outside noise affect him.

Why is that? How is he so mentally tough? I think it goes back to his family and the way that he was brought up.

He's got a great family and Spencer's very grounded. He doesn't let a lot of things affect him and he's always been that way. When I go back to my time with him at Oklahoma, he dealt with adversity at Oklahoma and handled it great. Whether it be losing his first two games in the Big 12 as the starting quarterback at Oklahoma, he lost to Iowa State and Kansas State in the opening of the season. He didn't let that affect him. He came back off those two losses and never lost again as the starting quarterback at Oklahoma. He's been through battles before. He's the type of person he is and I'm proud and glad that he's our quarterback.

Shane Beamer here with us. Is he coming back for another season? He's focused right now on this bowl game that we have here later on in December or January. He and I had a good conversation on Monday about his future and I'll keep that between us. He's got a decision to make and like I told him, I want what's best for him and we're here to help him get the information that he and his family need and here to support him in any way and help him make the best decision for his family and his future. I always wonder how that process works because if the coach at a college says, hey, I want you to come back, you know, some people could look at that with an eyebrow raised and says it really for the best interest of me or the best interest for him. How do you kind of navigate through those conversations to make the best decision or help make or, you know, assist in making that decision process? Yeah, you know, you always want what's best for them.

I mean, certainly, you know, selfishly, I want all these guys to come back, but also want these guys to be successful. And with me, it's always be honest with them that, you know, they all know that I'd love for guys to come back, but I want guys to be able to pursue their dreams if it's the right time. And what we try and do is just sit down with them and have honest conversations about, hey, what are you thinking?

And here's where I see things. And then we also, you know, the NFL is very generous with us. And like they all are, a lot of the college teams in regards to giving us feedback on how they see how they see our potential draftees, you know, their comments on them and their concerns, their questions, their other things they like and whatnot. So they can see how the NFL sees them and get them the best amount or most amount of information that we can and then help them make the best decisions of the day. But it's always what's in the best interest of the student-athlete. We're not going to like give them fake info telling them that they should stay.

I mean, we're going to be honest with them and then help them make the best decision. Shane Beamer here with us from South Carolina. Two tremendous victories the last two weekends up against Clemson and Tennessee. Last year, you guys got an abundance of praise for the job you did leading that team to a 7-6 record. To now, after you're number two, I know you still have another game, but to be at 8-4, what do you think your team and your coaching staff really proved this year? Yeah, I'm really, really proud of that. I'll be honest with you. To do what we did in year one, I think a lot of people said, man, great job.

That's awesome. But wow, it's going to be hard to do that in year two. And I heard a lot of the experts out there saying, well, South Carolina might be a little bit more talented this year, but their schedule is so tough. Their record might not be as good, meaning we're a five-win team.

And we're sitting here now at the end of the season. We've won eight. We beat Texas A&M for the first time ever. We beat Clemson for the first time since 2013 or 14. We're nationally ranked, the highest ranking we've had in the CFP era. There's so much to be proud of, and I think it says that what we're doing is we're on the right track and that we weren't just some one-hit wonder that had a great year last year or a good year last year and capped it off with a bowl win, that we came back with high expectations and we exceeded those expectations and still have a chance to win a bowl game and get a ninth win, hopefully, and be even higher ranked at the end of the season. So there's a lot of momentum about South Carolina football right now inside our football facility, but then outside the facility nationally and with recruiting as well. So we've made some great progress in the two years that I've been here, but we've got a lot of work to do, but we are well on our way to doing it. What do you think the ceiling is for this program at South Carolina? I think we can accomplish everything, and when I say that, I mean win championships, and people may laugh, but I look at it, and I've said this before, tell me what we don't have that we need to win championships.

We did it when Coach Spurrier was here before we played for the SEC Championship. After that season, there were three consecutive seasons of top ten finishes, if I'm not mistaken, and we've got a fantastic state to live in. We've got a great city to live in.

University of South Carolina is a fantastic place to go to school, great academics. Our facilities are second to none. The game day atmosphere in our stadium is second to none. We've got a recruiting base to recruit to, so we're in the toughest competition in America. It's a battle every week, but if you can win this league, you're going to have an opportunity to go win a championship beyond that as well, and that's what we're striving to do each and every day.

Shane Beamer here with us. Coach, whenever I watch your team, I could tell that your players trust you, and then you trust your players as well. That's not always easy to have this early on, especially with NIL and also the transfer portal, because you guys have guys that come in, you can also have guys that leave as well, as you know. How did you guys really build that trust so quickly to get, I know not everyone's always on the same page, but the feel of that to be with your program?

Great question. I appreciate you saying that. I think it's just the consistency, if that makes sense, that myself and our staff try and have with our guys. When I got hired, the very first team meeting that I had, I told the players, I'm not going to stand up here and ask you to trust me. You don't know me, but what I'm going to do is my actions day in and day out, I'm going to earn your trust. I feel like we have. We're honest with them, we don't tell them lies, we don't tell them what they want to hear, we're honest with them, but they truly know, I believe, that we care about them and love them, and our actions show that day in and day out.

That's built just with your daily interactions. Just do what you say you're going to do and treat people the right way, and be consistent day in and day out. I feel like our staff has and our players have bought into that and what we're doing.

You're right, it's harder than ever in today's time with NIAL transfer portal, you name it, it's a different time, but you can still have a really, really, really close-knit team, and that's certainly what we have here in Columbia. My next question, I'll preface it by saying that I know it's like asking a parent who's your favorite child, but in terms of your wins this year, what's the win that means the most to you? Man.

Wow. There have been so many great wins. I mean, obviously, the joy that we created within our team and our fan base by winning that one Saturday against Clemson was really, really, really huge. I know how important that rivalry is, and beating Tennessee at home, what an electric atmosphere that was that night on the national stage with all of the nation watching.

I mean, that's right at the top. And then really, to me, the thing that kind of kick-started everything was when we beat Kentucky in Lexington back in October. So we were 3-2, we were overall, we were 0-2 in the SEC, and both those losses had been convincingly to Georgia and then Arkansas beat us by a couple touchdowns out in Fayetteville. So to go on the road against a nationally ranked Kentucky team at night in a place that we hadn't won at since 2012, when we won that game, it just gave our guys so much more confidence and kind of opened up a lot of odds, I believe, about, okay, there's something, let's keep an eye on South Carolina, and then we came back the next week and beat Texas A&M, or two weeks later to beat Texas A&M at home after an off-week.

So the Kentucky game really kick-started everything in a lot of ways and was very pivotal to our season, and then there have been some really, really, really fantastic moments since then as well. Shane Beamer, the head coach of South Carolina, your family, it's obviously been well-documented, the success your family's had in the sport of college football, but sometimes we forget coaches have families and they're not just robots and all that. I thought it was awesome the moment you shared with your family after the game, especially your mom, after beating Clemson.

I saw that on social media. Just what did that mean to celebrate that win with your family? Really cool, and what it's all about. I mean, there have been so many games that I was at as a son of my dad when he was coaching at Virginia Tech, and then my mom as his wife, and Alfred Elm to be at all of our games is really meaningful, and what it's all about. I mean, they're my parents, and then my sister was there with her family, and then my wife and three children. You make a lot of sacrifices when you're in this profession. There were a lot of great moments as well, like we had on Saturday, but you make a lot of sacrifices also, and the highs are high and the lows are low in this profession, but that day on Saturday last week was a really, really, really big high for us and made it even more special to be able to celebrate it with not just my immediate family, but parents and sister and everybody as well.

Almost winding down on year two. What have you learned about yourself the last two years, Coach Shane Beamer? You realize that when you're in this chair that I'm in, just the amount of people that you impact or that you're responsible for, first of all, in the building, if that makes sense. I mean, people think, okay, you're the head coach, and you've got 100-plus players and whatnot, but it's not just that, it's the coaching staff, it's the support staff, the strength staff, the nutrition, training room, video, weight room, equipment, I mean, you name it.

It's just a lot of people that you're responsible for, but you're the leader of. And then when you're in a state like South Carolina, there's no pro sports in South Carolina, so when I impact a lot of people, we impact a lot of people, I should say, the South Carolina football program with what we do on Saturdays throughout this state. And me as the head coach, me as the leader of the program, I'm the one that's up front and visible in press conferences and things like that, so I don't know if I learned anything, but you realize how important South Carolina football is to the people of South Carolina, Gamecocks everywhere, and that when you're the leader of that program, that's a great responsibility that I love. Last thing I'll ask you, Coach Shane Beamer, I just want to get your thoughts on what stands out to you from a coaching angle on the SEC title game between Georgia and LSU. Yeah, first of all, with LSU, we've seen them on some crossover video this year when we were getting ready to play Florida and Tennessee. Florida and Tennessee had both played LSU before we played those guys, so got to see them on video, very athletic, and they're certainly talented. LSU's never lacked for talent, and Coach Kelly's come in and done a nice job, and the quarterback's an athlete and can do a lot of things with his arm and his legs. They certainly didn't perform the way they wanted to last weekend, but what more could you ask for than to be coming into Atlanta with a chance to win a conference championship? And then Georgia, obviously, I see a lot of them being in the SECs with them and haven't already played them. There's just so much respect for what they've done there again this year to lose all those players off a national championship team to get every single team's best shot every single Saturday this year, and then here they are again undefeated, number one in the country, with a chance to win an SEC and national championship. So a ton of respect for what they've done, and they're really talented, but they're really well coached, and what an atmosphere that will be on Saturday, I'm sure. Well, Coach, the last two weeks have been absolutely awesome taking down Tennessee and Clemson. We really do appreciate you carving out some time. Good luck whatever bowl game you guys go to, and we appreciate it. You got it.

Hope to do it again soon. Thank you. Throughout the 60s and 70s, cops hunted down key figures of the Dixie Mafia, including its enigmatic ringleader, Kirksey Nix. I'm in a rush to making money.

I'm not in a rush to hurting people. Fifteen years into Kirksey's life sentence, the Dixie Mafia was practically folklore, but that would soon change. I'm Jed Lipinski. This is Gone South, a documentary podcast from C-13 Originals, a Cadence 13 studio. Season 2, The Dixie Mafia, available now on the Odyssey app, or wherever you get your podcasts. Throughout the 60s and 70s, cops hunted down key figures of the Dixie Mafia, including its enigmatic ringleader, Kirksey Nix. I'm in a rush to making money.

I'm not in a rush to hurting people. Fifteen years into Kirksey's life sentence, the Dixie Mafia was practically folklore, but that would soon change. I'm Jed Lipinski. This is Gone South, a documentary podcast from C-13 Originals, a Cadence 13 studio. Season 2, The Dixie Mafia, available now on the Odyssey app, or wherever you get your podcasts. Throughout the 60s and 70s, cops hunted down key figures of the Dixie Mafia, including its enigmatic ringleader, Kirksey Nix. I'm in a rush to making money.

I'm not in a rush to hurting people. Fifteen years into Kirksey's life sentence, the Dixie Mafia was practically folklore, but that would soon change. I'm Jed Lipinski. This is Gone South, a documentary podcast from C-13 Originals, a Cadence 13 studio. Season 2, The Dixie Mafia, available now on the Odyssey app, or wherever you get your podcasts.