The South Carolina State football coach, who led his team to an HBCU title in 2021, has a giant heart and is beloved in the state.
Now here’s the same face nine months on in a golf cart parked at the 35-yard line at unpretentious Oliver C. Dawson Stadium just after a practice that ended at 8 a.m., like always, and if there’s a better place around the psychedelic trail of American college football than the passenger seat of Buddy Pough’s golf cart, please do alert. There’s a train whistle in the distance and a fine rasp of a voice up close, a voice in season No.
He also has eight Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference titles, one HBCU title, a 144-83 record, a trek through at least six athletic directors and at least 11 presidents , and a passage through some bumpy rapids of the past decade when some around here craved his exit. He also has a 48-12 record in the past 19 Novembers, which tells a whole lot about a whole lot. He also has a giant heart. He’s also an artful cusser.
He also, okay: “I was a single-digit handicapper back before I started getting my body parts replaced. My hips, the knees — I’ve got two hips and a knee. And see that knee [the left one] right there? I would do that knee there, too, but after I got three of these things I couldn’t figure out how to get them all to work together. I figured you just got to keep this one because that’s the only thing that keeps me from falling apart, I think. I think that might be the last piece of the puzzle.
See the slighted South Carolina State players forge their 31-10 upset romp. See a 6-foot-5 wide receiver luring NFL eyeballs, Shaquan Davis, hoard three touchdowns. See the seconds run down and the camera zoom in on that face, and know Pough rarely cries unless you count the time in 1996 he won a state title at 15-0 at Fairfield Central High.