Shane Beamer responds to Mark Stoops's sunglasses comment
A few weeks ago, Mark Stoops made headlines for an interview at SEC Media Days were he took a perceived shot at South Carolina and Shane Beamer.
Tuesday, Beamer got to make his first public remarks in a press conference setting about it. He mentioned the two coaches haven’t talked since the quote became public.
“I saw the quote from SEC Media Days on Marty and McGee and saw the statement he made last week,” Beamer said. “I appreciate coach Stoops saying it wasn’t directed at me. Like I said in an interview last week, I have great respect for Mark and the Kentucky program.”
Stoops, when asked about changing a program’s culture, said it’s easy to change the climate of it by changing uniforms or putting on “some stupid sunglasses.”
Beamer made headlines at Media Days by appearing in a video while dancing to Soulja Boy and wearing a pair of larger sunglasses. The Marty and McGee show taped the interview with Stoops a day later.
Since making those comments, Stoops has come out and said it wasn’t a shot at South Carolina’s second-year coach.
“I like Shane and I have no business talking about anybody else, you know that. We went through this before,” Stoops told reporters. “So I didn’t, I really — that’s just not my style. You’ve known me for 10 years. If I’m going to say something to somebody, I’ll say it. I wasn’t even talking about Shane at all. I didn’t even know what people were talking about.”
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Beamer and the Gamecocks are coming off a seven-win season. They have largely talked about the improvement in the culture around the program.
So much so that Beamer said Kentucky assistants last year went out of their way to praise it.
“I know the basketball coach at Kentucky made the comment he did about the program, I know Mark says he says in his lane. And I can’t imagine he would have gotten he would have gotten out of his lane to direct a shot at me,” Beamer said.
“I said it the other day in the interview, Mark was very complimentary of our program before we played them last season. In fact, two or three of his assistant coaches came up to me during pregame warm ups last year to comment on the culture of our program and how impressed they were with it watching videos on social media.”
South Carolina and Kentucky play in Week 6 this year, an Oct. 8 clash in Kentucky. The Wildcats beat the Gamecocks last season 16-10 en route to a 10-win season.
Beamer is focused on getting his team ready and isn’t worried about this much.
And he hasn’t lost any respect for who Stoops is and his program.
“It is what it is. He has his program to worry about; I have mine to worry about,” Beamer said. “My respect for him is still high and that program as well.”
