Jeremiah Dontai, the newly appointed athletic director at the University of South Carolina, is quickly leaving his mark on the football program. Last week, he extended head Coach Shane Beamer’s contract through 2030, starting at $8.15M per year.
Just over a month into his new role, Dontai has been impressed by Beamer’s passion and commitment. He shared his thoughts on Beamer during an appearance on “The Postgame Show” with Jay Phillips and Elijah Campbell on 107.5 The Game, offering nothing but praise for the coach.
“Shane… I mean, just what he’s done and all you [have to do] is look at recruiting [and] the trajectory. One of the things that really impressed me about him [was] when I spent some time with him early. And this is before the contract was officially extended. I spent some time with him talking about ‘what did you learn from the 5-7 year last year?’”
Though Beamer’s impressive turnaround from a 5-7 season to a 9-3 regular season finish speaks volumes, Dontai was particularly struck by Beamer’s maturity as a coach.
He admires Beamer’s dedication not only to building a championship-caliber team but also to positively impacting the lives and futures of his players. Dontai further lauded Beamer’s efforts.
“If you’ve been over to the football operations building, [you’ll see] they’ve got, kind of all these mantras and sayings and words. It’s really cool. And he [Beamer] said, ‘we found in talking to some of our guys, that those were just words that we had lost, kind of that core culture.
So we’ve got back to basics, whether you’re the first string quarterback or the fifth string punter – we don’t have five punters – but we wanted to make sure that you understood what it means, what it meant to be part of the Gamecock football program.’”
With Dontai’s full backing, Coach Beamer is poised to lead the Gamecocks to continued success and championship contention for years to come.
