Taneyhill: South Carolina Football's First Popular Steve

Prior to Spurrier, there was another Steve that was well known by most South Carolina Gamecock fans. Reminds me somewhat of a Stephen we now have as a QB.

  Steve Taneyhill is a former South Carolina Gamecock Quarterback that brought fans some excitement from 1992 through 1995. During his career at South Carolina he set several records.

  Taneyhill was known as much for his long, blond ponytail flowing from the back of his helmet and attention-grabbing antics as he was his statistics. When the helmet came off a bandanna was seen wrapped around his head in the days before this became a common scene.

   He once stood on the field and swung an imaginary golf club immediately after a touchdown. The biggest in-your-face insult happened against the gamecocks most fierce rival on their home field. He signed the treasured tiger paw drawn on the field at Death Valley, the home of the Clemson Tigers.

   Some of Steve's accomplishments as a quarterback have not been equaled. He racked up 8,380 yards in total offense, completed 753 of 1,245 passes and threw 62 touchdowns.

  Taneyhill wished to be remembered as "That Crazy, Yankee Quarterback".

  Since graduation he has had some noteworthy accomplishments as well. In 2006, he coached his Chesterfield (South Carolina) High School football team to the state championship game, where they lost to Carvers Bay High School. The next year Taneyhill's team redeemed itself with a 13-6 win over Carvers Bay to take the state title. The state title came to them again in 2008.

  Taneyhill also coached at Cambridge Academy, a small private school in Greenwood, S.C. where he led the eight-man team to back-to-back state titles. The next year the team was defeated during the state title game finishing that year as the state runner-up.

   Steve Taneyhill is now 33-years-old and still coaches at Chesterfield High School. His sister, Debbie Taneyhill, is the former women's head basketball coach at George Mason University.

  He will always be remembered by many long-time gamecock fans as one of the best, and most contraversial, Quarterbacks that have played a football game at Williams-Bryce stadium. 

  Being a long-time gamecock football fan, it is my hope that the current QB, Stephen Garcia, will be the young rebel to equal or exceed Steve Taneyhill's records.