How six legendary head coaches shaped Shane Beamer’s path to South Carolina
Frank Beamer whisked away a tear from his autumn-ish brown eyes as he looked down the walkway outside his family’s home in Blacksburg, Virginia.
Standing on the front step, Frank and wife Cheryl waved down the driveway to a then 22-year-old Shane Beamer. Loading up his black Ford Explorer, Shane was leaving the place he’d spent his formative years, where his father became a coaching legend and where his college career ended just shy of a national title, for a job working in the weight room on George O’Leary’s staff at Georgia Tech.
“He played here at (Virginia) Tech and we’d see him all the time in college and the whole deal and now he was going away to Atlanta,” Frank Beamer recounted. “It was a happy time and a sad time for (me and his mom).”
As Shane peeled out of the driveway and began the seven-hour trek down Interstate 77, he left behind a nest of comfort in rural south-central Virginia. This wasn’t about comfort or ease, though. This was about a headstrong 20-something-year old carving a place.
His dad’s shadow loomed larger than those created by the Blue Ridge Mountains that envelop Virginia Tech’s campus.
Shane was determined to escape.
“I’ve been around some Hall of Famers,” he told The State. “And each of those guys was different.”
Beginnings in Atlanta and Knoxville
Shane Beamer had always had a coaching itch.
Pictures of a tween-age Shane carrying around the cords to Frank’s headset on the Hokie sidelines have become iconic.
Around that same time, Frank came home to Shane standing on the second-story balcony on the family’s home in Blacksburg armed with a walkie-talkie. Below, Shane convinced his sister and a handful of her friends to run plays that he would radio in from the deck — mimicking the coaching box at Lane Stadium just a few miles up the road.
“He had a whole game going on back there,” Frank Beamer said through a laugh.
Shane wasn’t calling plays in Atlanta during the 2000 season. He was hardly looking at a playbook, at first. O’Leary had hired him to help in the weight room. Whenever the Yellow Jackets had a graduate assistant opening, they planned to move Beamer from his current slot into one more cohesive with his on-field aspirations.
After a few months working alongside the strength staff, Beamer was promoted to a graduate assistant. He partook in play breakdowns and sat in meetings. He also worked with the long snappers given his background in special teams with the Hokies.
“Shane was a guy that, obviously he’s been around Frank all his life, and a lot of that rubs off on him,” O’Leary told The State. “He was a very detailed guy that was always looking toward the future.”
Shortly after Shane finished his career at Virginia Tech, he accompanied Frank to the 1998 Shrine Bowl. There, Frank coached the East All-Stars alongside Tennessee head coach Phil Fulmer. Chatting with Shane during that week, Fulmer came off impressed with the younger Beamer. If he had the chance, he wanted to hire him onto his staff in Knoxville.
While he had just a few months of work at Georgia Tech on his resume, Shane and Fulmer began a dialogue about a graduate assistant position with the Volunteers. With Tennessee in the midst of five double-digit winning seasons in seven years, Shane felt a chance to work under one of college football’s perennial powers brought vital experience and networking value.
“He wanted to improve his networking, which is fine — I think that’s what I meant by he was always looking to the future,” O’Leary continued. “... It doesn’t surprise me he’s a head coach.”
In Knoxville, Beamer was one of just three graduate assistants — a far cry from the armies of assistants, analysts and quality control staffers modern programs trot out now. He spent time in meeting rooms, working mostly with the defense. He grabbed coffee and McDonald’s orders, broke down film and ran errands.
Fulmer also trusted Beamer to coach the kickers during his three seasons in Knoxville.
“I’m just thrilled for him,” Fulmer told The State. “He’s just kind of marched along and done extremely well everywhere he’s been. He’s made the teams he was with better.”
Moving to Mississippi, marriage, coming to Carolina
Sylvester Croom was named the head coach at Mississippi State on Dec. 1, 2003.
Woody McCorvey, then the defensive coordinator at Tennessee and now the chief of football administration at Clemson, would be Croom’s defensive coordinator. His hiring, though, was contingent on bringing three people with him from Knoxville: current New York Giants assistant Freddie Kitchens, former Tennessee director of football operations Brad Pendergass and Shane Beamer.
“It was hard when you were at certain programs (to keep people around),” Croom said, starting to chuckle. “Because damn, I was getting Shane on the cheap.”
Born and raised in Tuscaloosa, Croom was a product of another era. He played center for Bear Bryant, earning Kodak All-American honors, winning a trio of Southeastern Conference championships and helping the Crimson Tide to a national title in 1973. His 16 years working in the NFL also left him a bit disconnected from the college game.
For what Croom lacked in recent experience at the college level, Beamer — who was hired as a cornerbacks coach and recruiting coordinator — brought with him a youthful exuberance and an ability to connect with players.
“I trusted him, because of his age, to communicate to me that generation gap,” Croom said. “Because I knew the players would talk to him, he would listen to them and he could explain to me if there were things that I might have been missing because of the age difference.”
Beamer’s time in northeast Mississippi also led him to his future wife.
Pendergrass, who lived two doors down from Beamer on Hummingbird Lane and worked as the assistant to the head coach in Starkville, had asked Beamer to meet their mutual friend, Emily, for dinner, insisting they’d hit it off. Beamer and Emily knew each other in passing as her father worked as a state trooper and ran security for the football team.
Focused on his first major coaching job, Beamer routinely ignored Pendergrass’ date proposal — until he couldn’t.
Arriving back in Starkville from a 2004 meeting with Alabama, Beamer pulled his car onto the overpass just behind Dudy Noble Field, Mississippi State’s baseball stadium, when he ran out of gas. His first call went to Pendergrass.
Brad agreed to pick him up on one condition: It was Emily’s birthday and Shane had to meet them for an hour at Old Venice Pizza Company on Main Street. Beamer reluctantly agreed.
A year and a half later, Shane and Emily were married. Beamer hasn’t run out of gas since.
“My wife would say I’ve come dangerously close,” he said through a laugh. “But I never have.”
A stint under Spurrier at South Carolina
With three years at Mississippi State under his belt, Beamer was approached by Steve Spurrier about joining his staff in Columbia.
One of Beamer’s first calls went to Croom. He explained he was going through the interview process with Spurrier for a job coaching linebackers and special teams.
Croom had an inkling Beamer would be on his way out of Starkville.
“I wasn’t going to keep him very long,” Croom recalled.
Once settled in Columbia in February 2007, Beamer oversaw South Carolina’s recruiting department for two of his four seasons with the Gamecocks. During that span, South Carolina earned four consecutive bowl berths and were ranked inside the top 25 each year.
Spurrier, Beamer and the Gamecock staff reeled in recruiting classes ranked Nos. 7, 35, 14 and 34 nationally, according to the 247Sports Composite, over that same stretch. Among the players South Carolina landed in its 2009 and 2010 classes — which Beamer oversaw as the recruiting coordinator — were Marcus Lattimore, Stephon Gilmore, Connor Shaw, Ace Sanders, Alshon Jeffery, DeVonte Holloman, D.J. Swearinger, Dylan Thompson and Byron Jerideau.
“He painted this picture of opportunity and legacy — what I could do for the university,” Lattimore told The State in April. “But he also knew my mom, he knew my cousins, he knew my sister, and to this day always still takes the time to ask how they’re doing. He’s just a human.”
While not quite the talker Spurrier was during his time at South Carolina, there are bits and pieces of the Head Ball Coach that still resonate in Beamer. He re-created Spurrier’s famed Arby’s picture after SEC Media Days in June. Beamer has also told the story of being kicked out of Spurrier’s golf group as he spoke to numerous rooms filled with Gamecock alums.
Speaking with reporters prior to his enshrinement in the South Carolina Football Hall of Fame in July, Spurrier was asked about Beamer and his chances to recreate the glowing success achieved during his 10-plus seasons at USC, including three consecutive 11-win campaigns between 2011 and 2013 that came after Beamer departed for Virginia Tech.
“The thing we proved is South Carolina can be relevant in college football,” Spurrier explained. “We can be a top-10 program. It’s not easy, but it is possible. So hopefully, Shane Beamer and these guys can get us there.”
Returning to Virginia Tech and moves to Georgia and Oklahoma
Frank Beamer said he never totally envisioned Shane on his staff. Some of that came with Shane’s insistence on carving his own path. He left the driveway in Blacksburg determined to clamber up the coaching rungs not on his last name, but through his own determination.
Needing a new running backs coach ahead of the 2011 season, though, Frank brought Shane back to Virginia Tech. His previous stops under Spurrier, Croom, Fulmer and Spurrier gave those within the building a sense that Shane wasn’t being hired just because he was the head coach’s kid. He’d earned it.
“It was never, ‘OK, he’s the coach’s son, that’s the only reason he’s here,’ ” Frank said. “Everybody else said, ‘Hey, this guy’s really good and we’re excited to be working with him and having him here.’ ”
Back in Blacksburg, Frank leaned on Shane. He deferred to his son on fourth-down calls and tight situations, when needed. Most of the time, Frank insists, Shane was spot on.
“He’s got good football sense,” Frank said. “Some people are smart as heck, but as far as football sense, they don’t have it. Shane, I really think, has good common sense, football sense, whatever you want to call it.”
When Frank retired after the 2015 campaign, Shane left Virginia Tech for a job coaching tight ends under Kirby Smart at Georgia.
Two years in Athens brought a learning curve of their own. Smart, like Shane now, was a first-time head coach taking over a program with sky-high expectations. The former Bulldog defensive back was resolute in his work and a tactician to the nth degree, traits Smart learned while working for Nick Saban.
Beamer matched that intensity in his day-to-day routine, while bringing a semblance of ease to his new room. He helped reel in five-star tight end prospect Isaac Nauta and five-star running back Zamir White. He also reconnected with former four-star tight end Jeb Blazevich, who he’d recruited at Virginia Tech before Blazevich settled on Georgia.
“I like to think that (Georgia) is a demanding place that we work at,” Smart said at SEC Media Days in June. “And (Beamer) did a tremendous job meeting those demands.”
Seated in the terminal at Charlotte Douglas International Airport, then-East Carolina assistant Lincoln Riley spied Beamer near his gate. Riley had never met him, but stopped Beamer for a brief chat. The pair traded stories of their weekend’s away recruiting before they boarded their respective planes bound for Blacksburg and Greenville, North Carolina.
“Before I called him here about coming to be a coach I think that was the longest conversation we’ve ever had,” Riley told the State.
Following three years in Athens, Beamer departed the SEC once more for a job coaching tight ends and, eventually, serving as Oklahoma’s associate head coach alongside Riley. Like Frank Beamer had in Blacksburg, Riley leaned on Shane’s game-management acumen. Shane’s feel was consistent. He didn’t overthink. He just made a call.
Heading back to Norman after downing Iowa State in the Big 12 Championship Game on Dec. 19, 2020 in Dallas, Riley arrived home just shy of dinner time. One neighborhood over, Beamer prepared for an early morning one-way flight to Columbia.
Both families planned to watch the SEC Championship game between Alabama and Georgia that night. Riley suggested the Beamers come over and they watch together.
Spending one final night in Norman, Beamer, Riley and their families traded stories and laughs. At 8:30 the next morning, Shane boarded a plane to Columbia.
“He was a big part of our success here,” Riley said. “Even though we don’t work at the same place anymore, any time that there’s anything we can do to help, we’ll do it at the drop of a hat.”
Heading home to Columbia, SC
Perched on the first of four wall-length shelves in Beamer’s office are a quintet of helmets from past stops.
First is Georgia Tech, followed by Tennessee, Mississippi State, Georgia and Oklahoma. A trio of South Carolina helmets also sit in the middle of the third shelf. Each is a reminder of the coaching journey that has landed Beamer in his ritzy office on the second floor of the Long Family Football Operations Center.
Beside the football facility are a pair of parking spots guarded by signs that read: “Reserved Coach Beamer.” One sits empty this afternoon. The other is filled with a hulking black GMC Denali. The Ford Explorer Beamer drove to Atlanta in 2000 is long gone — sold in Starkville, he said.
O’Leary is now retired after long spells as a head coach at Georgia Tech and UCF, his last season coming in 2015. Croom bounced around the NFL after resigning at Mississippi State in 2008 and later worked with the Senior Bowl for a time. Fulmer has remained around the game serving as the athletic director at Tennessee until this past year, while Spurrier, too, has kept close to college football and now serves as an ambassador for the Florida athletic department.
Smart and Riley are, of course, still running their own powerhouses at Georgia and Oklahoma, respectively.
“It’s cliche, but you’re so ingrained in the job and doing a good job that you don’t take time to think about it,” Shane said. “But certainly I knew during my time working with those guys, how blessed I was to be working for some of the people that I’ve worked for.”
Saturday, Beamer was set to race out onto the field to the tune of “2001: A Space Odyssey” leading his own program in a place he’s made his own. Frank and Cheryl were planning to be in Columbia for the opener against Eastern Illinois and a few other games, while balancing a handful of obligations at Virginia Tech.
This visit, though, only tears of joy will be shed.
This story was originally published September 2, 2021 at 5:00 AM with the headline "How six legendary head coaches shaped Shane Beamer’s path to South Carolina."
