Beverly Smith dishes on South Carolina softball's unique mustache celebration

The South Carolina Gamecocks have lost six of their last nine softball games, but are looking to turn things around Sunday afternoon against the Florida Gators. A huge piece of that has been making sure the team has the right attitude, or what some are calling a ‘mustache mentality.’

Head coach Beverly Smith spoke to the SEC Network broadcast at the top of the third inning, with South Carolina winning 4-2 at the time. There, she explained how the team is working to turn things around and celebrating with mustaches.

“Well, it’s kind of getting all the pieces to click together and I think we’ve been doing that all season long,” Beverly Smith said. “We almost ran out of mustaches yesterday. So, it’s a good problem to have. You want to be playing your best ball late in the season, and I think we’re starting to do that.”

As the broadcast broke down, the South Carolina players wear fake mustaches when they hit home runs this season. Pitchers also get in on the fun and wear the mustaches after good performances, with the celebration starting with assistant coach Jake Epstein, who happens to have a mustache of his own, starting the team’s ‘mustache mentality.’

Smith added that she knows every group is different, but that this year’s South Carolina team special is their attitude. The mustache celebration is a piece of that.

“Every year it’s a different group. I think we’ve been intentional about making sure the players get to know each other and at the end of the day, you’re having fun when you’re on the field. So, staying creative and keeping it loose is important because this part of the season is a grind, and going through a conference like this can be tough. So, getting them to play loose and their best is the key.”

When asked what it would take to get her to wear a mustache, she made it clear that South Carolina just needs to keep on hitting.

“If we keep hitting, I will happily wear a mustache,” Smith said.

South Carolina infielder Riley Blampied explains mustache celebration

Following a recent win for South Carolina over Arkansas, senior infielder Riley Blampied explained the team’s mustache celebration.

“It’s kind of falling off…Yeah, so Coach Ep came in here, he’s great, he came in with this mustache mentality,” Blampied said. “So, we do good offensively, we get mustaches. Today, we got a win and we got mustaches.”