Shawn Elliott shares what lessons he learned while being away from South Carolina
With Shawn Elliott returning to serve as South Carolina’s run game coordinator and tight ends coach, the Gamecocks are getting more than just a veteran coach.
Having spent the past 27 years coaching college football, his seven years as a head coach at Georgia State makes him valuable to a program because he understands what it’s like to be running a program.
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“At Georgia State, it was probably much different than it is here. You wore a lot of hats,” said Elliott. “You had to be a position coach, you had to coach special teams, you had to be involved in everything. We only had a staff of really, myself, ten assistant coaches, five GAs and a couple other support personnel. We didn’t have a whole lot. It was kinda like being back at App. State in the early years. You had to do more than what was expected. You had to go out and, I mean, I would take trash out, I would vacuum, I would do everything you could imagine in being a head coach.”
While Elliott likely won’t be asked to vacuum any rooms in the Cyndi and Kenneth Long Family Football Operations Center, it’s those experiences that will surly be welcomed at South Carolina. Losing Pete Lembo to Buffalo this offseason not only meant losing a talented special teams coordinator but also a coach who brought 15 years of head coaching experience to Columbia. With seven years of head coaching experience, which doesn’t include stepping in as interim head coach head coach of the Gamecocks midway through the 2015 season, Elliott will serve as a tremendous resource to Beamer,
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[Win two tickets to the South Carolina-Florida men’s basketball game]
“Truly, the number one thing I think I’ll bring back is just ultimately how you totally involve yourself with the team…. How do you fit (into) all of their lives and that was something that I had to find out how (to) do? What conversations do you start?”
His secret? Candy.
“My head coach at Appalachian State, Jerry Moore, he taught me probably the most important thing. He said to always keep a big ole box or candy or a big ole jar of candy in your office… That way it’s gonna bring everybody into your office. Once the word gets out that you have the candy in your office then they start filing in on a daily basis. So, I did that. And he was exactly right. So I started conversations with a different positional player each and every day.”
