Need someone to do heavy lifting, dirty work? Just call on new Gamecock Adam Prentice
The front-line things about new South Carolina football player Adam Prentice have already been put out there to a degree. He’s a fullback, a rarity in the modern game. He once was a walk-on and earned his scholarship. He played for new Gamecocks offensive coordinator Mike Bobo at Colorado State and is, to a degree, following him to Columbia.
What has not been talked about: Prentice is a godfather; despite his role all over the offense, he found the time to lead Colorado State in special teams tackles one year; and between school and classes, he helped on a project to move an 8,000-pound cowboy statue.
And now, he’s coming to South Carolina, a man who has never lived east of the Rocky Mountains getting a new adventure.
“College is the only time in your life that you have to explore new places, explore new cultures, without having a lot of tie-downs,” Prentice told The State this month from Missouri during his cross-country drive to Columbia. “To explore that and have that opportunity to do that was my interest.”
He said he still loves Colorado State, but life gives only so many chances.
A look at each of those small moments for one of the newest Gamecocks.
▪ Prentice and his family had long been close with his high school coach, Rich Hammond. Prentice played both ways for Hammond at Clovis High School outside of Fresno, California, earning off-field awards before taking his shot at the college level.
Hammond coached Prentice’s little brother, had worked with his father and took an active role in both their lives. Hammond had known Prentice since he was a seventh-grader, and he decided to extend the honor to Adam, having it happen in a gap between a spring semester and Adam heading back for summer weights.
“Adam is a devout Catholic,” Hammond said. “There’s some requirements there for being a godparent. And so anyways, we asked him and he was willing to. We feel very blessed that our youngest daughter, Rose, is his goddaughter. ... When he was last year in the spring we arranged to do it then and got it done.”
▪ A player like Adam Prentice is somewhat of a rare breed in college football. He came through two seasons of not playing at the start of his career, earning his scholarship before ever playing a game. He stepped into the lineup as a redshirt sophomore, and twice held the mantle of captain.
And coming through that, he still didn’t mind some of the dirty work, being the team’s top special teams tackler one season.
“I love special teams,” Prentice said. “You watch any football game at any level, that’s how you win games. A lot of those explosive plays or big momentum plays happen on special teams. That’s what ends up swinging a game. For me, it’s another play to attack the guy in front of you. I enjoy doing that.”
▪ Then there’s the statue. The four-ton cowboy needed to be moved because of renovations to the school’s Shepardson building. Prentice was a civil engineering major, and part of an internship involved the project to move it.
“My supervisor and I were tasked with designing a new stand for this big bronze — it’s like probably, I can’t remember, it’s 15 feet tall — bronze statue,” Prentice said. “Trying to move it across the quad. Design a foundation that would be adequate to hold it and coordinate the tradesmen to come and do the work.”
He plans to focus on structural engineering for his master’s degree, with goals of doing structural design and perhaps having his own firm down the road.
Prentice the utility guy
Hammond described Prentice as an “exceptional human being,” the kind of player who arrives early, gives his all in the weight room and sticks his nose into things when it comes to contact. He was a three-sport athlete (football, track, wrestling).
“He’s just as good as they come,” Hammond said. “A young man who takes care of business and I’m sure will garner respect when he gets there in the locker room just by the way he carries himself and goes about his business.”
And he should have a lot of business this spring and during the season.
Starting tight end Nick Muse is out for spring after a torn ACL, meaning Prentice will work alongside veteran Will Register and a pair of redshirt freshmen in Keshawn Toney and Traevon Kenion.
He’ll also possibly take on a bit of a teaching role. Despite being a newcomer, he and fellow Colorado State grad transfer Collin Hill, a quarterback, know the team’s new offense better than anyone else on the roster.
That offense will ask him to play some fullback, some tight end. He described it as a role that will put a lot on his plate.
“Like a utility kind of guy,” Prentice said. “Kind of put me anywhere. Last year and how we ran the offense, we would kind of wide up in a lot of different formations, different packages to execute certain plays. You know sometimes I would be in the backfield. Sometimes I’d be kind of in a wing, second tight end guy, sometimes a receiver motioning around. It kind of just depended on the play called, how we were running it that week.”
