South Carolina's Sterling Lucas hitting the ground running in recruiting
South Carolina’s Shane Beamer spoiled Sterling Lucas on his first-ever day of recruiting.
The newly-hired defensive assistant made the rounds with Shane Beamer and Clayton White in what was his “training day,” chauffeured around on the school’s private plane.
The next day on his own he wasn’t as lucky.
“They had me riding on a private plane the first day. I was with the head coach and that was awesome. The next day I’m on the road and I drove about six hours that day. I got humbled pretty fast,” he said, laughing.
But for Lucas, it didn’t matter. He was just happy to be back in his home state with a new adventure.
South Carolina’s newest edge coach had never really recruited while spending all of his professional career in the NFL where recruiting isn’t a necessary part of the job.
He had to get acquainted to it quickly, getting hired in January before jumping head first into on-campus visits then on the road recruiting, but it’s nothing new for him.
As a player during his time at NC State Lucas always wanted to help in recruiting efforts.
“I’ll tell you, man, it was awesome. To me man, recruiting, as a player I had to do it. every official visit they had me hosting guys,” he said. “To me, it’s relationships. It’s being yourself and being genuine and players and players can see through it when you’re being genuine.”
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Originally from Orangeburg, it makes sense Lucas will focus on some aspects of in-state recruiting while also branching out and looking across the country for EDGE prospects.
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Sterling’s enjoying it so far and knows what he’s looking for in a player despite being new to college recruiting.
“We want players we feel can help us win at this level: the guys who have the makeup, the guys who have the mindset to come out,” Lucas said. “The number one thing at my position is I want effort. Everything else I can clean up. Obviously getting off the football as a defensive lineman, explosiveness. Those are some of the many things we look for.”
Lucas comes to South Carolina after stints with Baltimore and most recently Jacksonville in the NFL. Lucas was a graduate assistant under Gamecock defensive coordinator Clayton White. He said the jump back to college was an easy decision.
“Obviously my relationship with coach White and seeing in the first year what these guys were able to do. To me, it was a no-brainer,” Lucas said. “Coach White and coach Beamer, coach beamer I knew him as an 18 year old but the respect I have for him watching his career from afar it was a no brainer and a great opportunity to come back home.”
With recruiting quiet until March, Lucas has time to delve into the players he’s coaching this year.
“I jumped right on the road recruiting. So I’m going through the process of watching the entire season and making get better tapes of one or two things each guy should work at and hone in on this spring,” Lucas said. “I’ll tell you what. I got a chance to see those guys in the weight room the other day and they’re working really hard. (Jordan) Burch, (Jordan) Strachan are big, athletic guys.”
