Almost a Clemson Tiger? Why South Carolina was the right path for Scott Wingo
If Bill Wingo had his way, his son would’ve been a Clemson Tiger.
A former All-ACC baseball player for the Tigers and a letterwinner for Clemson football, Wingo raised his three boys in Greenville to pull for orange and purple. But when it came time for his youngest son, Scott Wingo, to make his college decision, the South Carolina Gamecocks seemed like the only answer.
Then-coach Ray Tanner and his staff recruited Wingo hard out of Mauldin High, while the Tigers only swooped in at the very end of the process. Scott still remembers the day he told his father he committed to the Gamecocks over Clemson. Bill asked his son, “Are you sure about that?”
“(Clemson showed interest) just a little bit at the end, but I just felt like South Carolina really wanted me,” Scott Wingo told The State, reminiscing. “And man, I fell in love with it. I felt like this was my place to be.”
Clearly, Wingo made the right decision. All these years later, it’s difficult to imagine Scott Wingo as anything other than a Gamecock.
Giant-sized pictures of Wingo adorn the walls of Founders Park, immortalizing one of the heroes on Tanner’s back-to-back College World Series title teams in 2010 and 2011. Wingo was a senior captain on that 2011 team and the Most Outstanding Player of that CWS. He was also somewhat of a Tiger killer — hitting four of his 24 career home runs against Clemson.
And now, as the Gamecocks prepare to face their bitter rivals this weekend, Wingo will once again be wearing his No. 8 garnet-and-black USC jersey on the field, manning the third-base coach’s box and waving runners home.
Head coach Mark Kingston ensured this offseason that Wingo’s connection with the Gamecock program will extend beyond trophies and plaques on the stadium walls. With an opening on the coaching staff, Kingston plucked Wingo from his volunteer assistant coaching position on Notre Dame’s staff and invited him back to Columbia.
Wingo, of course, jumped at the opportunity.
In the months since, the 32-year-old Wingo has stepped back into the spotlight he once filled on campus. Before the Troy football game at Williams-Brice Stadium on Oct. 2, Wingo served as the on-field “starter,” getting fans into the action with a “Game! Cocks!” chant. In the Feb. 8 men’s basketball game against Kentucky, the current USC baseball team was honored during a media timeout. Kingston handed Wingo the microphone and the Colonial Life Arena crowd went ballistic as Wingo yelled, “Seven points? That ain’t too much in my eyes.”
Bill Wingo might’ve once wanted his son to be a Tiger, but there’s no question that Gamecocks country has claimed Wingo as their own. Scott wouldn’t have it any other way, and he jokes he’s even gotten his father to come around a little bit.
“I gotta get him wearing garnet and black,” Scott Wingo said, laughing. “He might wear like a neutral color. But we’ll get him. I’ll get him wearing black.”
The definition of a Gamecock
For all the adulation Wingo receives around Columbia, the former Gamecock player-turned-coach tries to keep a level head.
When he thinks about his time with the Gamecocks, the heights of the national titles aren’t the first memories that come to mind. He thinks about those first couple of seasons in 2008-09 when he felt lost at the plate, when he doubted his abilities, and he remembers the support he received from Tanner and his teammates and family.
“I remember just going back into the batting cages, trying to figure it out, trying to get better,” Wingo said. “I always think about when I was in that valley, how much I worked to get to the top. And so it’s nothing like boasting. It’s more humbling, and I just want to continue to work. And same as a coach. I feel like coaches always can get better.”
As he works with the Gamecocks on this year’s team, Wingo said he tries to be the same kind of positive force he needed as a player. The former second baseman works primarily with the team’s outfielders, while also assisting with hitters and infielders. Most of all, he wants to help be a guiding force, to help keep players loose and confident.
Selected by the Dodgers in the 11th round of the 2011 MLB Draft, Wingo still takes a few hacks in batting practice from time to time — to show USC players he’s still got “a little bit of juice in the thing.” In one batting practice session before the season, Wingo drilled a couple of homers over the Founders Park fence, flipping his bat in the process.
Even still, he’s not so sure he could hit the kind of velocity SEC pitchers feature these days.
“I feel like I could lay a bunt down,” Wingo said, grinning. “Right now 95 (miles per hour) looks like 107. And that quick-twitch might be a little bit gone.”
But Wingo said he’s loved getting to know the team’s current players and that their grinding mindsets remind him of teammates like Adrian Morales, Christian Walker and Michael Roth. One freshman, center fielder Evan Stone, reminds Wingo a little bit of himself in the way that he chases after the ball with reckless abandon.
That’s what Gamecock baseball is all about, Wingo said. That’s the culture Tanner and those teams had, and Wingo wants to help keep that Gamecock tradition going into the future.
“(Gamecocks are) people that are fighters,” Wingo said. “When I was here, we had obviously some studs. You knew they were gonna be big-leaguers. But for the most part, we had a group of guys that were tough and would fight you and did it the right way.
“And I think that’s what South Carolina is: a bunch of good people here to work hard, do it the right way and go try to beat somebody. ... That’s my definition of a Gamecock.”
And who would know better?
Next USC baseball series
Who: South Carolina vs. Clemson
When: 7 p.m. Friday; 4 p.m. Saturday; 3 p.m. Sunday
Where: Founders Park (Columbia); Segra Park (Columbia); Doug Kingsmore Stadium (Clemson)
Watch: SEC Network Plus; ACC Network Extra; ACC Network
