Every school has stories of “that time [insert name here] was almost” part of their program. However, not many college football programs can say that a Major League Baseball Hall of Famer was almost a member of their football team. The South Carolina football program can say exactly that about former Major League Baseball star Wade Boggs.
In a scouting report from the Kansas City Royals in 1976, it was mentioned that Boggs had a full scholarship to attend the University of South Carolina.
@Royals Scout Report on Wade Boggs #Baseball #History @ChickenMan3010 @BaseballHall pic.twitter.com/wzTnJRNM53
— Baseball Nostalgist (@bballnostalgist) January 6, 2014
The scouting report mentions that the scholarship was for baseball, but Boggs was actually slated to play under scholarship for the football team and be a walk-on for the Carolina baseball team. In high school, Boggs was a very good quarterback but saw a potential future in baseball in jeopardy from blindside hits. He stopped playing quarterback and focused on his punting and kicking and earned a scholarship offer from new Gamecock Head Coach Jim Carlen.
Instead of making the leap to college and playing for Carlen and Gamecock baseball coach June Raines, Boggs took a $7500 contract to sign with the Boston Red Sox after his high school graduation. In the end, the “chicken man,” as he was nicknamed, and his famous mustache made the right decision as a 20-year MLB career ensued, and the sweet-swinging Omaha, Nebraska native was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2005.
A career .328 hitter at the Big League level who accumulated 3000 hits, Boggs certainly would have been a massive addition to a baseball team that made it to Omaha in 1977. It would have been a cool bit of trivia if Boggs was also the kicker who kicked extra points after all of George Rogers’ touchdowns as Big George got to Columbia in 1977, the same year Boggs would have arrived on campus. With the frequency at which Rogers found the end zone, Boggs may have found himself toward the top of the Gamecocks’ all-time scoring list.
Undoubtedly, Wade Boggs made the right decision for him, but, for the Gamecocks, it remains one big mustachioed “what if.”
Add us as a preferred source on Google