South Carolina won the NCAA Division I Baseball Championship in 2010 and 2011 and finished as national runner-up in 2012. The Gamecocks have made 11 College World Series appearances, six being in the last 15 years.
In those 11 appearances, the Gamecocks are 32-20 for a .615 winning percentage, which is sixth-best among winning percentage leaders in CWS history. South Carolina is one of three schools in the nation to have reached at least 12 NCAA Super Regionals since 2000 and has the most NCAA Super Regional appearances of the 14 SEC schools since 2000. In addition, the Gamecocks own the second-highest win total in Division I baseball since 2000 (791-332 record) and more conference wins than any SEC team since 2000 (308-198 record).
Along the way, the Gamecocks extended a postseason streak of 22 consecutive wins, including 12 straight victories at the CWS. Both streaks that started in 2010 continued through to 2012 and are now NCAA records. South Carolina’s 30-4 (.882) record from 2010-2012 in the NCAA Tournament is the fifth best, three-year postseason record in NCAA history.
Carolina owns the second-highest win total in the nation in the last 13 years with a 626-251 record. South Carolina is one of six schools to appear in the NCAA Regional every season from 2000-2014 including 10 NCAA Super Regional appearances in that span, one of only two schools to accomplish the feat. Recently, South Carolina is one of only four schools in the nation to host an NCAA Regional in six of seven years.
The championships in 2010 and 2011 were massive in many ways. The Gamecocks closed out Rosenblatt and opened up T.D. Ameritrade in Omaha, they brought home the first major championships in school history and more lives and hearts were touched than could be possibly recorded. Nothing perhaps, was more emotional though, than the stories of Bayler Teal and Charlie Peters:
The Real Battle
"That’s an interesting word choice, considering the Gamecocks have drawn the past two seasons from stories of those trying to survive brushes with cancer.
A year ago, 7-year-old Bishopville native Bayler Teal lost his fight with the disease during the most dramatic game of the 2010 season, in which USC was down to its final strike trailing by a run in the 12th inning in the CWS. The team played in his memory, and his grief-stricken parents flew to Omaha to celebrate his life. Emotional, they helped hoist the national championship trophy.
A companion story in 2010, and one that emerged with verve in 2011, was that of Charlie Peters. Tanner originally met Peters when the team was in Omaha in 2003. Peters was in a children’s hospital, having been diagnosed earlier that year with Burkitt’s lymphoma.
Peters improved dramatically by the time the Gamecocks returned in 2004. He welcomed the team back in 2010 and again in 2011, as a 13-year-old who is now a ballplayer himself.
For the final four games of the tournament, Tanner stationed Peters in the dugout as one of the team’s batboys.
The day of the championship game against Florida, Tanner was stressed when he arrived at the ballpark. A visit with Peters in the dugout, though, and Tanner was at ease. “We chatted, just me and Charlie,” Tanner says. “It put it in perspective for me. We’re playing a game. Sometimes we feel like there’s nothing worse in the world than a loss, but it’s really not that big of a deal when you get right down to it. Perspective is an important thing.”
So is the sort of hope that watching Peters walk, talk – and smile – provides. “I think hope is one of the true, true reasons for existence,” says his mom, Jenny. “For some reason, God wanted him to still be here. He beat the odds. He cheated death. Charlie is a sign of hope.”
One of USC’s mantra’s in the College World Series was “battle.” Bayler and Charlie first taught the Gamecocks how to battle."
For USC and the kind of caliber players they recruit, connections get made, but relationships are kept, for years and years. Lives are touched and not forgotten. These aren't publicity stunts when teams go to Children's Hospitals or do works around Columbia, the Gamecocks genuinely care about the community and doing good for it. This was more apparent in Coach Tanner than perhaps anywhere else; that man has a heart of gold, or garnet, we should say! In 2011, the entire team shaved their heads bald in honor of cancer victims struggling. The players did things like that and community service, voluntarily, while maintaining their hectic, college lives. It was two teams filled with seriously amazing guys, yes crazy personalities, but genuinely good-hearted boys learning to become men.
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