Gamecocks land talented kicker commitment from Sunshine State
The South Carolina football team is looking for its next starting kicker. The Gamecocks got a commitment at the position Sunday.
Daniel Lester of Sunlake High School in Florida announced he was committing to Shane Beamer and the Gamecocks. Sunlake is in Land O’ Lakes north of Tampa.
“The thing that drew me to SC was Coach Beamer,” Lester told The State via a Twitter message. “The way he has changed the program and took it from a 2-8 team to a team that wins bowl games has proved his worth as a coach. There was no better decision than South Carolina.”
Lester had visited South Florida and West Virginia and said he had interest from smaller Division I and Division II schools.
The Gamecocks are looking for a replacement for Parker White, the school’s all-time leader in scoring who is graduating. White started his career as a walk-on and finished with 368 career points. South Carolina is returning Mitch Jeter at the position. Jeter has handled kickoff and punting duties.
Lester, who also plays soccer, is ranked No. 6 nationally in Kornblue Kicking rankings. He’s expected to join the Gamecocks as a walk-on.
Lester got into kicking during the start of the covid pandemic in 2020 from former NFL Martin Gramatica, who coached him in soccer. Gramatica was a third-round pick by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and played nine seasons in the NFL. Gramatica won a Super Bowl with Tampa and was Pro Bowl selection in 2020.
As a senior, Lester was 24-for-24 on extra points and made 7-of-11 field goal attempts with a long of 52 yards. He also averaged 37.7 yards per punt on 35 attempts for the Seahawks and was named to Suncoast News’ 2021 All-Pasco County Football Team.
Lester also was selected to play in the seventh annual Pasco County All-Star Game.
Beamer was in Tampa on Sunday to see the Tampa Bay-Philadelphia playoff game and posted photos to social media with Tampa kicker Ryan Succop and Eagles’ quarterback Jalen Hurts.
This story was originally published January 16, 2022 at 1:10 PM.
