Forever linked by big moment, Brian Scott remembers Gamecock teammate Phil Petty
Phil Petty and Brian Scott will be linked together forever in South Carolina football history for a play they made more than two decades ago. But the relationship between the quarterback and receiver started long before that September 2001 day in Athens, Georgia.
Scott recalled meeting his future Gamecock teammate at a camp in Tennessee during the summer before their senior year in high school. Scott was a standout receiver at Darlington High, while Petty was a decorated quarterback from Boiling Springs.
“He was a quiet dude,” Scott told The State of that first meeting with Petty. “My high school coach pointed him out and said, ‘That is likely going to be your quarterback in the Shrine Bowl all-star game.’ And I went and did some research on him and found out he was pretty good.”
That first memory was one of many things that came to mind for Scott when reflecting on the life of his former teammate.
Phil Petty died Thursday after a brief illness. He was 43.
“He is going to missed,” Scott said. “He’s like a brother to all of us. It has been a tough few days.”
After the camp, the two played against each other in the 1996 season’s playoffs — Scott’s Darlington team defeated Boiling Springs. Scott said he’s always teased Petty about that playoff victory.
A few weeks later, they were reunited again as teammates on the South Carolina team in the Shrine Bowl, which matches the top S.C. senior players against their counterparts in North Carolina. Petty was the MVP of the game for the S.C. squad, which lost 21-14. He was 7-of-16 passing for 116 yards in the game.
The two arrived at the University of South Carolina together and built a strong quarterback-receiver relationship over the years, punctuated by their moment Sept. 8, 2001 against Georgia.
Down 9-7 with less than a minute and a half remaining in the game, Petty dropped back on third-and-10 and found Scott for the go-ahead touchdown in the 14-9 victory — it’s a play that is still known as “The Catch” and remains a memorable moment in Gamecock football history.
It was also USC’s second straight victory over the Bulldogs.
“We joke all the time that he under-threw me the ball and I am making a catch for him,” Scott said. “We called timeout. I told coach (Lou) Holtz I wanted the ball. And if Phil had enough time to throw it, he was going to get it off — and the rest was history.
“It has been more than 20 years and people still talk about it. I had one of my players at Lamar High School (where Scott is an assistant coach) come up to me the other day and ask me about it. We always are going to be linked together for that play.”
This story was originally published July 22, 2022 at 9:29 AM.
