Shane Beamer clutched either side of the podium Monday in the main ballroom at the Wynfrey Hotel, took a deep breath and began his address.
Before Beamer, 37 rows of reporters buried deep in their laptops pecked away on their keyboards as the first-year head coach commenced his nearly 12-minute filibuster of an opening statement. Behind the rows of keyboard cowboys, the bright lights of the SEC Network’s set in the back right corner lit up the room.
Finally, Beamer arrived on the Southeastern Conference’s largest offseason stage.
“To be here today representing the University of South Carolina, I’m very honored, very grateful and, frankly, really, really cool to be up here in front of all of you and representing our program today,” Beamer said in a rapid-fire tone.
After COVID-19 dashed any normalcy surrounding Beamer’s introductory news conference in Columbia this past December, Monday’s event in Hoover, Alabama served as his unofficial indoctrination into the SEC head coaching fraternity.
Beamer spent the bulk of his afternoon channeling words of press conferences past. He spoke on expectations and what he hopes to build at South Carolina heading toward the future. He added insight on the glory days of 11-win seasons of the Steve Spurrier era and how he hopes to bring those to Columbia once more.
Of course there were the token questions about Beamer’s upbringing, his father, Frank — the legendary longtime head coach at Virginia Tech — and the difficulties of taking over a program that has won just six games the past two years. But as has been the case throughout Beamer’s short time back in Columbia, he took it all in stride.
“Really you go back to when I was playing high school football, growing up in Blacksburg, Virginia, there were certainly kids I played with who said, ‘The only reason you’re the starting whatever on the football team or the baseball team is because your dad’s the head coach at Virginia Tech,’ “ Beamer recounted. “Then I got into coaching — whether it’s right or wrong — I always tried to keep that chip on my shoulder or edge about myself to prove myself for sure.”
Scattered around the main ballroom were reminders of a coaching career and life that has slowly matriculated toward the 30-minute performance Beamer put on for the rows of writers and the slews of television reporters just across the hall.
Tucked into the back left corner of the cavernous room, former Mississippi State athletic director Larry Templeton sat amid a handful of bowl officials. As Beamer rolled through his impassioned and perpetually positive speech, the men representing some of college football’s most prominent postseason contests ogled at his cheery, yet fiery nature.
“That’s one of my boys” a proud Templeton told one of people sitting near him.
Of the varying influencers who’ve impacted Beamer’s ascent, Templeton has quite literally had a front row seat. He spoke with former Mississippi State head coach Sylvester Croom the day Beamer interviewed for an assistant coaching job on the Bulldogs’ staff and implored Croom, “Let’s get him.”
Beamer’s future wife, Emily, also worked under Templeton as a media relations intern during her undergraduate years at Mississippi State — later helping pass microphones to reporters at SEC media days years ago — while her father, Sheriff Steve Gladney, served as Templeton’s assigned Mississippi state trooper for 20 years.
“I sent (Steve) a picture while Shane was on the podium and told him his boy was doing good,” Templeton said, cracking a wider and wider smile with each word.
The official start to Beamer era?
On Monday, Beamer joined the ranks of the who’s who at SEC Media Days for the first time in his career.
Prior to arriving at the Wynfrey Hotel, he and the South Carolina crew that included senior defensive end Kingsley Enagbare and senior tight end Nick Muse ran into LSU head coach Ed Orgeron on the tarmac after flying in from Columbia. Orgeron later joked it was nice to see that the “new guy” showed up early.
“I think that he’s going to do a tremendous job,” Orgeron said of Beamer. “He’s a great coach. I wish him the very best.”
Once settled into the towering hotel that’s been emblazoned with an SEC logo and its oft-panned “It just means more” credo, Beamer made his rounds.
He spoke with his usual charm in a scrum with local writers one floor above the main ballroom and 20 minutes before he took the podium. He quipped how nice it was to speak with a gaggle of six reporters in-person rather than staring at everyone’s varying boxes on Zoom video calls that were commonplace over the past year.
There were the usual musings of offseason news and notes and questions on the latest developments in who had and had not arrived on campus yet. But sandwiched in between queries on depth charts and quarterback development, Beamer was asked whether Monday’s event felt like the official start of his tenure in Columbia.
As he did throughout the event, Beamer cracked his million-dollar smile, tucked his hands into his gray suit and delivered with the poise of a politician and excitement of a kid stepping out of his own father’s shadow.
“I love talking about South Carolina football,” he said. “And certainly other than being around the team day in day out, this is really another, ‘OK, it’s here, and it’s real,’ type of moment.”