South Carolina Football: Another Gamecock great announces NFL retirement

South Carolina football has had two all-time greats from the program's recent history announce their NFL retirements over the past few days.

Former All-SEC wide receiver and return man Pharoh Cooper was the first, ending his professional career earlier this week after 8 years and two All-Pro berths (one as a kick returner and one as a punt returner).

The second retirement was announced on Tuesday as former Gamecock kicker Elliott Fry posted on social media that he was hanging up his cleats.

Fry spent five years in the NFL, but he didn't make it to the league immediately after leaving Columbia. He was unselected in the 2017 NFL Draft, and he didn't have a job in football until 2019 when he was signed by the Orlando Apollos (and former South Carolina football coach Steve Spurrier). He performed well enough in the spring season (he didn't miss a single kick) to earn his first NFL shot with the Chicago Bears.

Fry bounced around for a bit in his NFL career, playing with the Chicago Bears, Baltimore Ravens, Carolina Panthers, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Atlanta Falcons, Kansas City Chiefs, Green Bay Packers, Cincinnati Bengals, Jacksonville Jaguars, Arizona Cardinals, and Denver Broncos. He was a reserve for most of his career but made 5 of 6 field goal attempts while active, all of them coming when he was with the Falcons, Chiefs, and Bengals.

During his South Carolina football career, Fry was an All-SEC performer who finished his career as the all-time leading scorer in Gamecock history. The record later was broken by his successor Parker White. Fry finished his time in garnet and black with the third-most field goals made, the highest extra-point percentage of any player with 100 attempts, and the highest field goal percentage of any kicker with 50 attempts.