How Connor Shaw is settling into new role at USC amid obstacles created by COVID-19
Connor Shaw signed up for a face-to-face position.
If he’s to have a hand in guiding South Carolina’s football players and help them develop life skills, it sure helps to be able to have in-person chats. That wasn’t to be for most of his time thus far as the Gamecocks’ director of football student-athlete development. But of late, there’s been a little more normalcy to the position.
“That allows me to be a little bit more consistent with those guys,” Shaw told The State. “I’m having some more players pop into the office.”
Shaw, the most successful quarterback in South Carolina history, is back in the building and back building bonds with the Gamecocks players. He told The State he was recently cleared to duck into the team’s massive weight room, which means a chance to interact with players as a face that’s still relatively new.
Settling into the job has meant surprises great and small. Obviously the cornavirus pandemic itself was a curveball, disrupting everything around the building for nearly three months. And the role has meant helping in a few life skill areas that surprised even him.
“I didn’t think I would be as involved with compliance-related issues,” Shaw said. “From off-campus housing to helping kind of relay information to our compliance department to our players when it comes to their financial aid through the summer.”
He’s had to explain what a Pell grant is. He’s guided players through the process of getting a car repair and learning the ins and outs of off-campus housing. He played a role of mediating with property managers in some cases, ensuring players understood what they were getting into with leases.
Through the heart of the pandemic, he assembled a team-wide Madden video game tournament, just to keep the competitive camaraderie going. It went alongside team nutritionist Kristin Coggins holding a cook off while the players were all at home.
“What do these guys enjoy?” Shaw said. “What could get them chirping at each other to have that camaraderie and just to have fun with it.”
He also brought in speakers such as Emmanuel Acho, Moe Brown, Stephon Gilmore, D.J. Swearinger and Chris Singleton, a former baseball player and motivational speaker who lost his mother in the Mother Emanuel tragedy in Charleston.
Those efforts earned some plaudits from head coach Will Muschamp, who brought in Shaw when former Gamecock Marcus Lattimore, one of Shaw’s teammates, stepped away from the role.
“Connor’s done a really good job of keeping our team connected,” Muschamp said in April.
Shaw said he spoke to Lattimore before taking the job. Shaw noted the role is different at different places: It’s sometimes more of a chaplain, sometimes focused on career development and, in Lattimore’s case, helping players understand their own psychologies and outlooks on the world.
The stamp Shaw aims to put on it: culture and leadership building. He’s long been interested in studying military organizations and bounced through several teams in his pro football days (Cleveland and Chicago).
Another push for Shaw has been helping some of the players with internships or job placement. Many of the players are sports entertainment management majors, which requires an internship.
Those ran the gamut from Aaron Sterling and Christian Kinsley working with the Boys and Girls Club to Cole Hanna and Adam Prentice at engineering firms to Dakereon Joyner working with the county government in Charleston. Jaylin Dickerson was with a manufacturing company that’s making face shields for medical professionals.
“A lot of it came from, hey, we don’t have a whole lot of time,” Shaw said. “We have too much time really, but limited time in the building and so they wanted a job to, one, gain some real-life experience, aside from football, and get some pocket change.”
They had to carve out time around football responsibilities, and with social distancing in mind.
Shaw had a decorated career in his time in Carolina. His longtime appreciation of Steve Spurrier helped bring him up from Georgia. When he took the field and eventually the starting role, he always had a certain knack for play-making, for delivering a key run or throw in a big moment.
He departed the school having gone 26-5 as a starter, leading the program to what was widely considered its golden era. He capped his career by throwing 24 touchdowns to just four interceptions on a squad that finished No. 4 in the country.
But since his departure in 2013, a lot has changed. The Spurrier era wound down and gave way to Muschamp’s arrival. The football program has seen a range of expansions in terms of facilities, from the indoor practice field to the palatial operations building in which his office now sits.
“It’s amazing how much it’s adapted since we left, graduated,” Shaw said. “That’s a testament to everyone that’s in this state that is invested in South Carolina football. ... We just kind of preach, don’t take it for granted.
“It’s neat to bring my kids back around here.”
