We've got some great people in this building that are eager to be successful," he said. In Beamer's case, it's borrowing a page or two from his father's playbook and not just creating BeamerBall 2.0. They are only concerned with how they will succeed. It crushed me."īut coaches don't focus on how things might go wrong. He looked right at me and said if you want to keep this thing, you better tell your dad he better win some football games around here. I grabbed it, and he held onto it, this was right after Virginia Tech had gone 2-8-1. The guy hands me my driver's license and how excited I am. "I got my driver's license when I turned 16 in Blacksburg. "They're very blessed that they get to experience a lot of things because of my job but there are also some challenges that come with that as well," he said. They know what it's like during the good times, Beamer has tried to prepare them for what could happen on those Mondays after a loss. His children have witnessed four straight conference championships watching their dad at Georgia and then Oklahoma. I'm like, man, I need your help! You can be granddad in the summertime, I need you to help me!"Īs the son of a coach, Beamer understands the spotlight is not always so friendly. He's more interested in being granddad right now than he is a football coach. My sister lives in Charlotte, she has three kids. "I had that living, breathing example for 44 years of watching as a football coach, and learning from him and seeing how he did things," Shane Beamer said. But he has something they do not have, a Hall of Fame advisor who is always one call away. The investment was designed to help Beamer keep up with the Alabamas and Georgias of the world. South Carolina built a $50 million football facility next to its state-of-the-art indoor practice center. It certainly has worked out great for me since then." "I'd be lying if I said that wasn't a disappointment to hear that, but I do appreciate Whit having that conversation. He told Bud the same thing," Beamer said. He came in and sat down and told me you're not going to be a candidate to be the head coach here. But Virginia Tech athletic director Whit Babcock made it clear to both Shane and Bud Foster that the program was going in a different direction when Frank retired. "When I got hired and I had my very first team meeting as the head football coach at South Carolina, I had done that before."īeamer was an associate head coach under his father in Blacksburg and had designs on replacing him. The special teams coordinator is the only coach on the staff, other than the head coach, that has to stand in front of the room and talk to the entire team," he said. I've got experience on both sides of the ball. He admits nothing ever fully prepares anyone to be a head coach, but also believes what he has done has prepared him for the challenge. The knock on Beamer is that he's never been a head coach, at any stop, at any level. I really truly wanted to be here and our family has wanted to be here for a long time and just making sure they understood that by the time I got off the phone." "It wasn't just what I was trying to say in the interview to get the job. "I said it was a dream job and it really was," Beamer recalled. He prepared 10 pages of notes for the call, things he wanted to make sure he said. He was contacted the day after Muschamp was fired and had a 90-minute phone conversation with athletic director Ray Tanner. So Beamer is back, replacing Will Muschamp. "It's not something that way back in 1960-something South Carolina did, we did it not that long ago," he said. He knows from experience, it can be done. In his last stop in Columbia, under head coach Steve Spurrier, South Carolina won a division title and beat Georgia, Clemson, and Alabama all in the same season. It would be no small feat considering the competition. That plan is to return the Gamecocks to the top of the Southeastern Conference. "It's awesome just being able to go into living rooms or have prospects come into this office and being able to be me and talk to them about our plan for Carolina football." I'm a competitor and certainly, you want to get everybody that you recruit," Beamer said. Now as the head coach at South Carolina, he's trying to close the deal. But he was always the first contact in the process. Throughout the seven previous stops in his coaching career, Shane Beamer did a lot of recruiting. Now Frank's son Shane, who was born in South Carolina, has returned to his home state in an effort to return the Gamecocks to that same national level. Over his three-decade career in Blacksburg, Frank Beamer put the Hokies on the college football map. There is a good reason why the name Beamer is synonymous with Virginia Tech football.
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