Stadium, schedule finalized for this year’s SC high school football championship games
All five South Carolina High School League football championships will be played at Benedict College for the second straight year.
The SCHSL executive committee voted 15-1 on Tuesday to approve the championships remain at Charlie W. Johnson Stadium. The dates of this year’s championships are Dec. 1-3:
▪ The Class 3A championship game will be at 7 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 1.
▪ On Friday, Dec. 2, the Class 2A game will be at 2 p.m., with Class A at 7 p.m.
▪ On Saturday, Dec. 3, the Class 5A championship will be at noon, with Class 4A at 6 p.m.
In 2020, games were held at Spring Valley High School and Benedict College with limited capacity because of COVID-19. Last year, there was no restriction on attendance with all games at Benedict.
The championships were played at two sites — both Williams-Brice Stadium and Benedict — from 2012-19. Before 2012, the University of South Carolina’s Williams-Brice Stadium hosted all the games.
A return to Williams-Brice isn’t out of the question for 2023 championships. The SCHSL executive committee voted to hear a proposal for USC’s home stadium to host the games next season.
The decision to hold the games at a smaller venue makes financial sense for everyone involved, including the teams, SCHSL commissioner Jerome Singleton told The State last year.
In prior years, the cost of holding the state championships at Williams-Brice approached $100,000, with half of that going toward law enforcement expenses. In last year’s agreement with Benedict, the SCHSL paid a rental fee and expenses to Benedict but kept money made from parking and concessions.
In 2019, when full capacity was allowed at games, the attendance combined for the five championships was 19,761. Last year’s Class 5A championship between Dutch Fork-Gaffney was the only one that came close to filling Benedict’s 13,000-seat capacity.
“I don’t think we need as big of a venue as we did in the past. They (Benedict) are well-sized to accommodate us,” Singleton said last year. “Williams-Brice is a great place to play the state championships. It is such a big venue, it requires a lot more people to be able to secure it the right way. We think because we are spacing things out and everything, we feel we can accomplish that a little more economically by holding it at Benedict.”
Speaking at a Columbia Rotary Club luncheon in April, USC football coach Shane Beamer made his feelings known that he would rather see the games at Williams-Brice-Stadium. Beamer was the guest speaker and took questions from members in attendance. One of the questions was about the site of the state championship games.
“I agree it is a great opportunity, the championship, high school teams to be able to play in that stadium,” Beamer said. “When I was here (as an assistant), you played in Columbia and then went to Clemson (for a year). After I left, it was changed for different reasons and that is made above my head.
“But if I had my choice, it would be right inside that stadium (Williams-Brice) every single December for the state championship.”
Still, Beamer and members of his coaching staff were in attendance during all of the games last year at Benedict.
The 2022 regular season in the state kicks off with games Aug. 18 and 19.
This story was originally published August 2, 2022 at 5:34 PM.
