Gesture-Gate: The Ridiculousness of the Shane Beamer-Bret Bielema Clash

Performative pontification: South Carolina's and Illinois' coaches created much ado about nothing

Nov 16, 2024; Columbia, South Carolina, USA; South Carolina Gamecocks head coach Shane Beamer celebrates beating the Missouri Tigers at Williams-Brice Stadium. He is holding the Mayors Cup, given to the winner of the South Carolina-Missouri game. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Blake-Imagn Images / Jeff Blake-Imagn Images

The sanctity of a college football field – where young men set to brutalizing one another and men twice their age live out their General Patton cosplay fantasies – is somehow regarded as athletic holy ground.

Good lord, get a grip.

The on-field flare-up in Tuesday's Citrus Bowl between the opposing head coaches, Illinois' Bret Bielema and South Carolina's Shane Beamer, was unnecessary at best and embarrassingly dopey at worst.

Inside the last two minutes of the third quarter of Illinois' 21-17 win, Illini defensive back Jaheim Clarke was shaken up when taking down Gamecocks quarterback LaNorris Sellers. The play was clean, and ther was no initial friction between the teams.

But when Bielema eventually walked out to ostensibly check on Clarke, then turned back before reaching him, he had a message for the entirety of the South Carolina squad milling nearby. He gestured by holding two fists away from his body, arms in the form of a T, and directed words – still unclear – toward the gathered Gamecocks.

Beamer's reaction: unhinged, apoplectic rage. He screamed, pointed, faux-squirmed out of the grasp of anyone attempting to turn him away – the classic junior high "Hold me back!" move. You would have thought Bielema had threatened the family of every member of the South Carolina side, though even Liam Neeson would have blushed at Beamer's oversell of a response.

In fact, Bielema had been annoyed by the Gamecocks' decision to return a kick moments earlier after, he says, he spotted someone on the South Carolina make the universally accepted sign for fair catch – the T symbol he reenacted on his walk back to the sideline away from Clarke.

“There’s an unwritten philosophy in coaching that when you do this,” said Beliema, arms extended, in the postgame press conference, “as a college kickoff return guy, what you’re doing is you’re telling everybody else that it’s going to be a fair catch and it’s going to be dead in the end zone when the ball lands.”

Beamer believed this to be some sort of affront against all that is sacred about football, or perhaps a direct attack on his manhood – or maybe both. Even with a four-point bowl game going on around him and more than a hundred players on both sides with far greater stakes on the line than any he could pretend belonged to him, Beamer simply couldn't let such an atrocity stand. The gauntlet had been thrown.

“Why he felt the need to come over here while his player was on the ground and look at me and say something to me and do that motion, like I was full of you-know-what – that’s what I had an issue with,” Beamer said. “I’m a competitive guy, and somebody says that to me, I’m going to respond, because I thought that was pretty bush league, to be completely honest.”

If only the bush leagues had ever seen a tantrum like Beamer's.

Shane Beamer and Bret Bielema literally did the meme. It’s perfection. pic.twitter.com/2MK5XXobsI

— Cory Smith (@RCorySmith) December 31, 2024

Let's cut to the chase here: The gamesmanship between coaches was typical. Bielema had been sending in last-moment defensive substitutions all game, and Beamer had complained – animatedly – over the duration. Whether the fake fair catch signal was a response to Bielema's tactics are sort of irrelevant. Both coaches admitted afterward that nothing illegal had occurred. But whereas Bielema's reaction was to return to the sideline with a Cheshire Cat's grin, Beamer went full Mr. Furious at midfield.

Hilariously, Beamer continued to stare down the Illinois sideline – and presumably Bielema himself – even after his self-made squabble had been settled. The thought that Beamer, built a hair shorter and a hamburger lighter than your average NCAA kicker, might have a real interest in going toe-to-toe with former Iowa defensive lineman Bret Bielema was a cute one.

Maybe beefs like these stir up some fans and give those without a dog in the hunt a reason to watch. Me? I think they're moronic. Take it from a middle-aged dude: I have no interest in watching two middle-aged dudes bark at one another while the players they're supposed to be leading do all the biting on the field.

By all means, do what you do within the rules – even bend them just a bit – to gain an upper hand. That's the job of a coach. Just leave it to those actually doing battle to settle things on the field. It's hard to know what's more repulsive: a grown man acting like a child or stolen glory.

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