One curse broken

You may have missed it back in February but one of those little “curses” that surrounds USC’s football program was quietly snapped. The Gamecocks can say that at least one football coach finally rose from the ashes of the coaches’ graveyard. That coach is Sparky Woods, and he will be leading the VMI football program starting this season.

Gamecock fans remember Sparky as the young coach from App. State with the thick southern accent that led USC from 1989-1993. What they should also remember is a guy that inherited a bit of a mess and left the program in a better place.

Sparky basically started his career in a no win situation. First, he replaced one of the most successful coaches in school history – never a good way to start. Second, he inherited a program that had a public black eye thanks to a steroids scandal. Third, he inherited a team with little depth at quarterback. The quarterback he did inherit went down with a season ending injury in Sparky’s first year. Lastly, and what really hurt Sparky, was that the Gamecocks entered the SEC in his fourth year, which considerably raised the bar for the program.

As for positives, not many people remember that he beat Georgia twice – both times in Athens. He notched a win at Clemson. And in his first two years, the Gamecocks were bowl eligible. (To this day, I maintain that Carolina’s decision to hold those two teams out of bowl competition because of exams was one of the great bonehead decisions in athletic department history. Had USC gone to those two bowls, it would have made four bowl appearances in a row for Carolina.) Lastly, he recruited guys like Taneyhill, Bennett, Pritchett, Cates, Campbell, Dexter, Dinkins, Evans, Richardson, and Rumph – players that were a big part of USC’s first bowl win in 1994.

After USC, Sparky spent time at Virginia, Memphis, Mississippi State, Alabama, and the New York Jets. Unlike most USC coaches, Woods was young enough to get another shot at a head coaching job. Here is hoping that he makes the most of it.