Scott Davis: Super pumped for South Carolina spring football

We made it.

We made it through all of those icy January mornings, all of those blustery February nights, through Valentine’s Day and President’s Day and Groundhog Day.

We made it through the College Football Playoff title game (who won that thing again?), through the Super Bowl, through the Winter Olympics and the ice skating and the curling and the snowboarding. At last, we see blossoms flickering on the azalea bushes in the front yard. At last, the sun is lingering a while longer in the sky each evening.

And at long last, it is time once again to turn our eyes towards the practice fields.

South Carolina spring football is back, friends. Fifteen practices. A handful of press conferences. Zero losses to anyone in the SEC. Infinite possibilities.

And I’m super pumped. You are, too.

For the first time in years, Gamecock fans are genuinely fired up to watch video clips of guys in shorts and helmets pushing a blocking sled around an indoor practice facility. This is the time of year when we mainline Wes Mitchell practice observations directly into our veins.

Of course, we would do this even if South Carolina was coming off a 3-9 campaign last year. But in the wake of late-season 2021 wins over Florida and Auburn and North Carolina? In the wake of an exciting Transfer Portal-palooza during December, resulting in the likes of quarterback Spencer Rattler joining the program?

I haven’t been this excited for the month of March to get here since I was a regular attendee of the St. Patrick’s Day celebrations in Five Points back in the ‘90s. Speaking of the ‘90s, it feels like that Duke’s Mayo Bowl happened during Bill Clinton’s first term. Has it really only been 10 weeks since that game?

And perhaps this would be the time for me to advise caution, to ask you to join me in taking a deep breath, in letting my blood pressure settle, and easing into the 2022 season with thoughtful restraint.

But I can’t.

Because I’m super pumped. And you are, too.

The Joys of Getting Jacked Up

The dangers inherent in getting too super pumped too soon are on full display for us right now on Showtime, where the meteoric rise of Uber has been chronicled in a new series called – you’re never going to believe this – “Super Pumped.”

In the show, former child actor (and current middle-aged actor) Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Uber founder Travis Kalanick, a man who has few friends and few social graces, but who does have an evangelistic power to sell just about anyone on his idea for disrupting the taxicab industry. As Kalanick, Gordon-Levitt swaggers, seethes, and gorges on scenery, ripping through his scenes like a guy who just drank 16 shots of espresso and spends each morning practicing every Leo DiCaprio monologue from “The Wolf of Wall Street” in his bathroom mirror.

Even better, viewers can count on him to deliver at least one – and perhaps three or four – impromptu speeches in each episode, during which he’ll fire up his employees into a white-hot frenzy, to the point that you wouldn’t be surprised to see someone hurl a chair through the plate-glass walls of a corporate conference room.

We know it’s going to end badly. It has to end badly, doesn’t it?

No one gets to be this arrogant, this over the top, and have this much of a God Complex without it ending badly (Spoiler Alert: If you somehow don’t know the story of Kalanick’s downfall, it ends badly.

Still, even though we know where things are headed, we can’t help but get caught up in the exuberance of the company’s giddy early days. It’s fun getting jacked up, after all.

So what about us Gamecock fans? Are we too jacked too soon? Are we too super pumped?

If there’s good news for the South Carolina faithful, it’s that the football program is currently in the hands of a leader who seems to understand that there’s more to building an organization and laying the groundwork for greatness than in delivering fiery speeches and pep talks on steroids.

Sure, Shane Beamer has plenty of youthful charisma and plenty of talent for selling his program.

But he has also taken a grounded, thoughtful approach to building this team with care and precision. Unlike at Kalanick’s cutthroat Uber, there’s a family vibe surrounding the South Carolina program – Beamer’s kids can often be seen cavorting happily behind the coach during his postgame press conferences. Even the team’s new arrivals from the Transfer Portal have spoken about how positive and upbeat the atmosphere is in Columbia (an observation that would have been unimaginable during the gloomy end of the Will Muschamp Era).

Yes, it takes personality and magnetism to lead an organization. But it also takes the implementation of core values that actually mean something beyond just talking points on a PowerPoint slide.

I believe those core values are in place at South Carolina.

Maybe that’s why I’m super pumped this March.

The Missing Links

There can be no doubt that I was the target audience for the makers of “Super Pumped.” After all, I read and enjoyed the book that the show is based on, and even once devoted a column to discussing “rise and fall” corporate-world tales like it.

What’s more, I’m such a fan of “Business-Related Angry Inspirational Speeches” that I actually created a Mount Rushmore of them in this space a couple of years ago. Fortunately, “Super Pumped” includes more Business-Related Angry Inspirational Speeches than 10 years of TED Conferences combined.

If you want to get jacked, you can check out the “Super Pumped” trailer.

When it comes to real-life Business-Related Angry Inspirational Speeches, no one will ever top former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, right?

After watching some of these clips, I’m so jacked up I feel like running into a blocking sled at full speed.

On second thought, maybe I’ll just watch some video of our players doing it instead.

Tell me if you’re super pumped for South Carolina spring football by writing me at [email protected]. Thank you for reading my most recent newsletter. Please click here to get future newsletters.

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