Shane Beamer on acting fast for Mike Furrey's hiring
South Carolina football has undergone a few coaching changes in the past month as the carousel rolls on. Shane Beamer has been prepared to fill the openings on his staff as they occur this offseason, acting quickly on his past three hires.
Beamer and the Gamecocks introduced their new wide receivers coach Mike Furrey on Friday morning.
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“I’d say you have a shortlist,” Beamer said. “There are certainly guys in my mind and in my office that I have a lot of respect for as receiver coaches or tight ends coaches, running back coaches, defensive backs coaches, that the first time I have an opening, I’m going to look at that list to see if any of those guys fit what we need.”
February was a dead period for recruiting so Beamer had some time for some rest and recovery before spring football takes off later this month. It wound up being quite the Saturday afternoon for him last week.
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“I was in The Bahamas last Saturday when the (James) Coley news broke,” Beamer said. “So I was sitting on the beach and I’ve got I feel like 100 agents and coaches that are hitting me up and texting me and things like that, which wasn’t the ideal scenario, as well. But that’s part of it.”
Spring break and spring practice are on the near horizon for the Gamecocks. The players leave for break starting Friday and then practice resumes next week.
“When timing becomes more critical because you’re coming more closer to spring practice,” Beamer said. “The last thing that I wanna do was hire a receiver’s coach and the whole team comes back from spring practice and its like, ‘Surprise here’s your new receiver’s coach.'”
“I wanted to get somebody in here where he could get around the players yesterday which he did. You gotta be ready, you gotta have a plan. Be ready to move and act on who you want to hire.”
The Hiring
Furrey and Beamer met up and had good talks at one of the summer camps Furrey’s son was attending last year. It was from those talks that Beamer knew he’d have someone in mind for this situation.
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“Talking with him, person to person last year I just remember walking away from that day in June thinking there’s there’s something different about this guy and certainly was somebody that I felt that I felt like I’d want to have on our staff here in Columbia at some point,” Beamer said.
Nailing the interview portion is always a plus. From the sounds of it Furrey passed with flying colors.
“Then he came down here last week and we met with him and interviewed with him and he was awesome,” Beamer said. “Walked out of there and Dowell called me that night like, ‘What do you think?’ and I was like, ‘I don’t see the point in talking to anybody else.’ I mean, nobody is going to be better than what he just was.”
