Shane Beamer addresses why supporting women's sports is such a priority for him

South Carolina football coach Shane Beamer was seen screaming to get the athletes off the field during a media timeout after an in-game ceremony to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Title IX. He received widespread backlash for the reaction.

After apologizing for his actions earlier this week, Shane Beamer spoke at length about his support for women’s sports and discussed why it matters so much to him personally.

CLICK HERE to subscribe for FREE to the On3 YouTube channel

“I know how hard they work,” said Beamer. “And they put in the same amount of time and make the same sacrifices that our male athletes do, as well. I’m the dad of two daughters. And my oldest is playing volleyball, and does basketball in the wintertime, and did soccer in the spring. My youngest daughter, she’s – as many hours as I spend up here, I feel like she spends more hours at dance, because she’s into dance. I got home late last night and I beat her home because she’s out at the dance studio until whatever time. Just that.

“And then I think having a chance to not only get to know the coaches, but some of these young ladies. The respect and admiration that I have for Aliyah Boston as a player, but getting to know her as a person. … Just getting to know them, spending time around the teams, and then understanding that we’re all part of one family here at Carolina. It makes it easy to support because they’re great athletes, but the ones that I’ve gotten the chance to know, they’re even better people which makes it easy to cheer for them.”

Beamer also discussed how meeting the sisters of many players at South Carolina and his previous stops as an assistant shaped his view on women’s athletics.

Dawn Staley defends Shane Beamer

South Carolina Women’s Basketball head coach Dawn Staley is siding with Gamecocks football coach Shane Beamer regarding an incident that happened during Saturday’s blowout loss to No. 1 Georgia.

“Hey @CoachSBeamer sorry I’ve been under a rock the last few days but we know you have done nothing but support our programs since the day you became @GamecockFB head coach! All hands on deck to get a win on Saturday!” Staley tweeted Monday night.

Beamer commented on the incident following the victory, noting that it was all just a misunderstanding between him and the game day operations.

“Before the game, we meet with the officials. The officials say we’re going to try and speed up the game as much as we can coming out of TV timeouts, and we would ask when the TV timeout is over we ask you’re at the line of scrimmage ready to go.”