KNOXVILLE – A child of Chattanooga and Girls Preparatory School, a tennis star at Appalachian State, Summer Elliott was covered in South Carolina garnet and black as she stood in Neyland Stadium’s South end zone Saturday night, slowly coming to terms with the Gamecocks’ 27-24 loss to Tennessee.
Such is the life of the first lady of USC football after her husband Shawn was named the program’s interim head coach following Steve Spurrier’s unexpected resignation on Oct. 13.
“Even though we lost, it’s been great,” she said. “Shawn’s living his dream right now. Those players really fought for him tonight.”
The dream they’ve lived together the past 15 years is a fairytale of epic proportions. A 1996 GPS grad, Summer Scruggs arrived in Boone, N.C., on a tennis scholarship. Elliott had graduated as a decorated member of the football team that spring. In a USC publication, she once said of her first sighting of her future husband in the Appy field house, “It was love at first sight. When I saw him I knew I was going to marry him. It’s crazy, but I knew it.”
You want true love? Elliott had just gotten a raise from $7,000 as a restricted earnings coach to $10,000 in a slightly higher position when he proposed in 2000.
Again, Summer from the university publication: “He lived in a room in the gym. He didn’t care about the money; his love and passion was coaching. He would eat canned spaghetti for dinner in this room. It was awful, but he loved every minute of it.”
Now fast-forward to 2010, to Spurrier interviewing Elliott for the position of offensive line coach at the school Elliott had always dreamed of playing for as a child while growing up in Camden, S.C.
Said Joe Scruggs, Summer’s father, of that meeting: “One thing that supposedly impressed Spurrier that day was that Shawn wanted the job so bad he never asked about money. The money didn’t matter. He just wanted to coach at South Carolina.”
Now, at least for three more weeks, he’s the Gamecocks’ new ball coach, his record now 1-2 after a victory over Vanderbilt and tough-luck road losses at Texas A&M (35-28) and Tennessee.
“We’ve got a team that believes in one another and hurts for one another,” an emotional Coach Elliott said afterward as he met with the media. “But the ball’s going to bounce our way soon. We’re just going to have to make it. (Tennessee’s) a very good, well-coached team, but I never thought we were overmatched.”
It is doubtful that Elliott will have a chance to keep his dream job for long. At least this go-around. Though South Carolina athletic director Ray Tanner isn’t saying he won’t strongly consider his interim coach, such hires rarely happen – especially in the Southeastern Conference, where all salaries are racing toward $3 million a year or more, which screams for a proven winner.
That said, Summer knows better than most the impact her husband can continue to have on the Gamecocks if given a chance to run the whole show for longer than two months.
“Just knowing that he’s touching every single person on that team,” she said. “He’s just so happy.”
Summer was more than happy Saturday to dress up to 10 Chattanooga family members and friends in Gamecock colors, especially since “they all graduated from Tennessee.”
She even wore her tattered garnet red Gamecocks ballcap, the one she bought when they first moved to Columbia, the one that’s “seen us win a lot of big games.”
It didn’t win this one, but it came close, USC tight end Jerell Adams fumbling at the close of a 30-yard gain as he fought for extra yardage.
Said an emotional Coach Elliott about that fumble: “What can you say? He was trying to win the football game. You tell him you love him, you pick him up and you move forward.”
For 9-year-old Maddyn Elliott and her 7-year-old brother Max, moving forward could mean moving on, leaving behind all that garnet and black and their new favorite treat – watching Dad do his radio show each week from Buffalo Wild Wings in the Vista neighborhood of Columbia.
“They love watching Shawn do his call-in show each week,” Summer said with a grin.
South Carolina wide receiver Terry Googer said the players love having Summer attempt to fill the giant shoes of Spurrier’s wife Jerri.
“We miss Ms. Jerri a lot,” he said. “But Ms. Summer’s been great. She’s so helpful. She really stands by our team. I don’t know where she finds the time to do all she does.”
Said Summer as she tugged on her lucky cap, “We’re taking this one day at a time, one week at a time, one game at a time. That’s really all we can do.”
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com