Long before Stetson Bennett IV was at Georgia, his grandfather was a QB for Gamecocks
— Update: Georgia defeated Alabama in the national championship game by a score of 33-18 on Monday night. —
The grainy photos of a 1959 South Carolina-Georgia football game residing at the top of Page 11-A of the Columbia Record newspaper run from one side to the other.
The four images are action shots — or at least what constituted action shots more than six decades ago — lined up in a row just beneath the masthead.
The quarterback donning a No. 14 jersey darts out of the pocket. The second picture depicts him racing around the edge. He then turns upfield and runs past a defender before his feet are clipped.
Perhaps it wasn’t old photo equipment that was the issue. That No. 14 always ran like a blur.
“He was a heck of an athlete,” former South Carolina receiver Ken Lester said of Richard “Buddy” Bennett, the quarterback in those images. “He was a little (undersized), but he was well built.”
Bennett’s exact impact on that game between South Carolina and a Fran Tarkenton-quarterbacked Georgia squad isn’t exactly known. His name didn’t appear in the scoring summary. The game stories from the contest are also largely lost to time. The only real proof he played are those aforementioned photos — though even that 14-yard scamper was called back because of a holding penalty, according to the caption.
Bennett’s impact aside, that Gamecocks win handed the Bulldogs their only loss of the 1959 season. It was that afternoon that kept Georgia from potentially claiming what would’ve been the program’s second national title.
Monday, the grandson of that blurry figure in the Columbia Record will have his own shot at a championship when UGA quarterback Stetson Bennett IV lines up under center against No. 1 Alabama on the turf at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.
In a family that’s long on history and even longer on stories, Buddy, who died in 2016 at 78 years old, was a central figure in the Bennett family and a crucial piece to the budding football legacy of the one they call “Stet.”
“The texts that get me after a good game or whatever say, ‘Papa would be proud of you,’ ” Stetson IV said Saturday during the championship game’s media day.
“Football,” Stetson Bennett III, Stetson IV’s father, added, “changed our lives.”
The fifth floor boys at South Carolina
The Towers, or “The Honeycombs” as the University of South Carolina dorm was known, was equal parts army barracks and frat house.
Those on the fifth floor, in particular, were an eclectic crew. Longtime South Carolina newspaperman Pat Robertson was one of those who called it home. Bennett, Lester and a handful of their football teammates lived in the Honeycombs, too.
Poking his head out of his door one day, Lester noticed a target plastered on the wall at the end of the hall. He then turned his head toward the opposite end.
There stood one of Lester’s floormates — whose name neither he nor Robertson could recall — with a bow and a quiver of arrows.
“It’s a wonder he didn’t kill somebody,” Lester said through a laugh.
Bennett, however, was quiet, his former dorm buddies say. He didn’t smoke. He didn’t drink. He certainly wasn’t part of the group that employed a blind musician friend of theirs to drive them back from the bars one evening.
No, Bennett was a straight-laced farm boy and the son of a preacher from the incorporated community of Little Creek, Georgia.
He starred on the football team at Jesup High School, helping the program to a state title in 1954. Bennett parlayed that into a football scholarship at Stetson University in DeLand, Florida. But when the school disbanded its program in January 1957, Bennett needed a new home.
Bennett had heard one of his coaches at Stetson University was set to join Warren Giese’s staff at South Carolina. That was enough to take a leap of faith.
With his thumb outstretched, Buddy Bennett trotted along the highway and hitchhiked the 400 miles from DeLand to Columbia for another shot.
“People make a lot of hoopla about my journey,” said Stetson IV, who walked on at Georgia, transferred and then returned. “I didn’t hitchhike anywhere. That’s just what you do if you want to play football.”
A Gamecock standout on the gridiron
Bennett was always precise in his strategy. He could read an edge like a book and ran with the efficiency of a Ford.
“Buddy just ran all over the place, and he just had it down,” former South Carolina offensive lineman Frank Staley said.
Bennett played football in a time when substitutions rules were less liberal — when receivers also lined up at defensive back, and when scoring 21 points equaled a romp.
The Georgia native climbed his way up Giese’s depth charts. By his senior year, Bennett earned his shot as QB1.
He appeared in all 10 games for the Gamecocks that fall. His 401 rushing yards ranked third in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Bennett’s 5 yards per carry topped the league.
“Buddy Bennett — he was a hotshot quarterback,” former South Carolina offensive lineman Bill Jerry told The State. “Very fast. Real good.”
South Carolina, though, slogged through the 1960 season. It lost blowouts to Miami, Duke and Georgia. A win over North Carolina allowed a momentary reprieve. But losses to Maryland, Clemson and LSU added to the sting.
USC closed the year tying an N.C. State team that won six games that fall. South Carolina also won its final two contests of the season over Wake Forest and Virginia — outscoring the Demon Deacons and Cavaliers a combined 67-20.
Football remained an integral part of Bennett’s life. He’d go on to an 18-year coaching career at the high school and college level, including stops at USC, Arkansas, Tennessee, Georgia Tech and Virginia Tech.
When Bennett came back home to visit his family in Jesup, he lovingly terrorized his nieces Frances and Vi, scooping them up and tossing them in the air to show how much stronger he’d gotten while away at school or at his latest coaching stop.
Frances recalls traveling up to Williams-Brice Stadium dressed to the nines for Buddy’s Gamecock games during his undergraduate years. There were no jean-shorts or jerseys in the stands in those days. Church dresses and suits littered the bleachers on fall afternoons.
“He was a hugger, if that helps you in (any way),” Frances said. “He was very affectionate to his family.”
It was there in Columbia, too, that Bennett met his future wife, Jayne.
Jayne had completed her undergraduate work at Georgia Teachers College (now Georgia Southern) before getting accepted into a master’s program in mathematics at South Carolina.
Heading up to Columbia for her courses, a family friend played matchmaker. Jayne and Buddy were married on Christmas Eve 1964 and remained together for the 51 years until Buddy’s death.
“When I left Hinesville and went to the University of South Carolina, (a friend) called Buddy and told him to look (me) up,” Jayne recounted. “And he did.”
Leading Georgia to a national championship
Buddy Bennett was never showy. He was prideful, yet sweet. He loved those closest to him. He cared deeply for others.
But there was always a subtle confidence about him in his playing days. It showed on the field. It showed in his demeanor. It showed in his stride.
“He had a very distinctive walk — it was kind of like ‘I’m the mayor,’ ” Lester said. “That’s the way he was in a football uniform. That’s the way it was walking around campus. He just knew that he was the man and he didn’t have to tell you that.”
These days, Stetson IV may well be the mayor in Athens, Georgia. One more victory and he might have a shot at the governorship in the Peach State. Leading a team to the precipice of a national title affords one such abilities.
Stetson IV technically gets his name from his great-grandfather. Stetson Jr. — Buddy’s brother — had all daughters, so Buddy employed the name for his son, Stetson III. Stetson III then passed it on to Stetson IV.
“You always want to make your family proud and leave the family name in a better spot after you’ve had it,” Stetson IV said. “And I know this is just football — I know there’s a lot more to life than just that — but while I’m here I’m going to try and do the best I can for it.”
Buddy always had some level of influence on Stetson IV’s football career. Stetson III quips his father wanted Stetson IV to be more of a runner under center. Stetson III preferred his son be more of a true passer.
Stetson IV even had brief fixations of landing at his grandfather’s alma mater.
During the spring of 2015, Stetson IV earned an invitation to South Carolina to throw for Steve Spurrier. He was one of three quarterbacks on the field at Williams-Brice Stadium that day, running through drills and showing out for the staff.
“We had a little traction there and then Coach Spurrier decided to just let it go,” Stetson III said. “He retired and I was like, ‘Well, boys, back to the drawing board.’ ”
That drawing board landed Stetson IV at Georgia, first, as a walk-on. A spell at Jones College in Ellisville, Mississippi came and went. As did a return to Georgia, where he has the Bulldogs positioned for their first national title since 1980.
Whether Georgia wins or not on Monday, thousands of column inches and hundreds of photos will be dedicated to Stetson IV in the coming days and weeks.
The Columbia Record, which first plastered those photos of Buddy Bennett atop its masthead all those years ago, no longer exists. The memories and mannerisms of that speedy athlete from Page 11-A, though, live on in Stet.
This story was originally published January 9, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
