Gamecocks' Shane Beamer credits special-teams work for rise to head coach

COLUMBIA — Most figured he’d have the aptitude for it. One does not grow up the son of Frank Beamer, who emphasized special teams and became an innovator by using his best players to perform those duties, and not realize their importance. Yet when it comes to hiring a head coach, picking one who has only been a special-teams coordinator among all of his myriad stops — and never an offensive or defensive coordinator, who almost always are the top candidates for a new head coach if a sitting head coach can’t be obtained — is unusual.

No reason why it should be, says Shane Beamer, who coordinated or helped coordinate special teams over five seasons at two stops (including three at South Carolina) before becoming the Gamecocks’ head coach. All coaching is about relationships, and a coach can build those even if he doesn't coordinate the nation’s best offense, or never presides over a defense, before becoming a head coach. “Being a special-teams coordinator prepared me better to be a head football coach than if I had been on the offensive side of the ball or the defensive side of the ball,” Beamer said.

“And I say that because when you’re the special teams coordinator, you’re the only coach other than the (head) coach that stands in front of the whole team and talks to the team, because coaching special teams takes the entire roster. ” Return on the Gamecocks’ investment has clearly been grand, Beamer rescuing a program sinking further into the muck and guiding it to back-to-back winning seasons, with several notable upsets and firsts sprinkled throughout. Yet because they’re fans and because they have free reign in the online world, any time the Gamecocks got their butts trashed on the field or lost a recruit, the grumbles would commence.

They’d usually mention something about lack of big-time experience and “hiring the tight ends coach,” a derisive wink at Beamer’s last stop, when he was tight ends/H-backs coach at Oklahoma. Nothing was ever said about the fact that he was also assistant head coach during his three years with the Sooners, and AHC for five years at Virginia Tech. When he landed the USC job, Beamer immediately reached out to Pete Lembo, who’s made his reputation the past two seasons as a special-teams wizard who still manages to out-fox opponents even if they know a trick play is probably coming.

Lembo traveled nearly the same road as Beamer. Lembo was an offensive coordinator — for one season, at Division III Hampden-Sydney — before becoming assistant head coach at Lehigh in 1998. He landed the head coaching job at Lehigh in 2001 and moved on to become HC at Elon and Ball State before becoming special-teams coordinator (among other tasks) at three schools from 2016-20.

He knows the stigma of being a non-OC/DC becoming a head coach. The noted academic also knows it’s irrelevant. “Number one, you have to build relationships with every single guy on the roster and then number two, you have to constantly be evaluating the talents and skill sets of every single guy on the roster.

And then third-more, which I think is maybe the most important, you take the approach that your job is to develop every single guy on the roster and improve those skill sets,” Lembo said, describing the similarities of head coaches and special teams coordinators. “So when you combine all of those things, it allows you to try to get the best out of people, but also put people in position to be successful to help the team win. ” If Beamer ever heard any of the fan criticism, he hasn’t spoken of it; and it isn’t like it would impact how he does his job if he ever did.

From Day 1, it was about establishing a culture, because if the players didn’t buy into what he was selling, he couldn’t expect to get a championship effort. How’d he do that? The same way he stresses special teams. It’s a privilege to play them, and it isn’t a case of finding players to do it.

It’s having players want to do it, which has spread throughout the team. Small wonder that special teams has been a major part of the Gamecocks’ success the past two seasons. It’s emphasized, but the attitude of getting to know every player and not just the ones scoring points or trying to stop the scoring of points was what won the room.

“All along, I was coaching offense and defense. So I told Ray Tanner and Chance Miller when I interviewed for this job that, no, I have not been an offensive coordinator or defensive coordinator, but I would not have changed my career path for anything because of how it did prepare me to be a head football coach as well,” Beamer said. “You have to be able to motivate guys to play special teams.

You have to be able to be detailed and organized because you might get 20 minutes in practice, so you’ve got to be efficient at what you’re doing in that time. "So my time as a special teams coach really prepared me. ” Gamecocks' Rich blossoms into role as special assistant to Lamont Paris .