Shane Beamer opens up on trying to navigate NIL, transfer portal

On3 imageby:Matt Connolly06/02/23

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South Carolina coach Shane Beamer has been able to rely on his father and other college football mentors often since taking over as the Gamecocks head coach.

Beamer’s dad — Frank Beamer — had an incredible run as the head coach at Virginia Tech and is someone Shane talks with regularly. Shane Beamer also coached under a pair of incredibly successful coaches in Steve Spurrier and Lincoln Riley and learned plenty from them, too.

But when it comes to navigating the transfer portal and NIL, all college football coaches are learning at the same time. There’s no blueprint to follow for this day and age of college football.

“We’re all experiencing it for the first time,” Shane Beamer told Adam Breneman on the Next Up with Adam Breneman podcast. “That’s one thing I can’t call my dad about, because he hasn’t experienced this with NIL and the transfer portal the way it is right now.”

Beamer also has a notebook he keeps with tips and ideas that he has accumulated over the years from his time as a player and his more than 20 years coaching in college football.

It doesn’t have any answers about the transfer portal or NIL either, though.

“When I was compiling that binder of notes, there was no NIL tab for me to refer to. We didn’t have that section in there back in 2007 or ‘8 when I started compiling that book,” Beamer said.

“We’re all learning, and each and every day you just kind of take it day by day and figure out what’s best for the South Carolina program and how to continue to make this program better — how to continue to help our student athletes in every which way that we can.”

There’s not one strategy Beamer sticks with in terms of NIL or the transfer portal, instead he takes everything on a case by case basis.

That strategy has worked out well as Beamer has turned around the Gamecocks program. South Carolina has finished with a winning season in back-to-back years and ended the 2022 regular season with top 10 wins over Tennessee and Clemson.

“I don’t spend a lot of time from a transfer portal and all of that standpoint worrying about things I can’t control,” Beamer said. “For me, it’s every single day – and I tell our players and coaches this all the time – every decision I make is going to be what I feel is best for the South Carolina football program, South Carolina football team.

“And to me, every single day it’s just making the decisions that are best for this program, trying to make this program the very best that it possibly can be, and then everything else kind of takes care of itself.”