Passion drives new USC assistant Elliott in coaching and life

Since his arrival in January, fans have worked to wiggle into the world of South Carolina's new offensive line coach.

They have learned Shawn Elliott grew up a Gamecocks fan in Camden. Learned he was a part of the successful Appalachian State machine that won three consecutive national championships in the mid-2000s. Learned of his intensity on the practice field.

That's all fine. To dig into who Elliott really is, though, you have to begin on Oct. 1, 2000.

You have to begin on the Mountain. You have to begin with Jonathan Taylor.

On the ride home from a football game at East Tennessee State on Sept. 30, 2000, Appalachian State's team bus came over a hill and around a curve to arrive at a giant ball of fire.

Seconds earlier, the team's support van had been hit head-on by another vehicle. Without much said, and without hesitation, three men were the first off the Mountaineers' bus.

Elliott, then Appalachian State's tight ends coach, was one. Stacy Searels, the team's offensive line coach who now works in the same role at Georgia, was another. Rob Best, then the Mountaineers' offensive coordinator, was the third.

Flames were quickly engulfing the team van. Without much time, the three coaches worked to get all 13 men and women away from the flaming vehicle.

One, in particular, needed help.

The accident

That season, his second as an undergrad at Appalachian State, Taylor had been promoted from equipment assistant to student football assistant and worked closely with Elliott and Searels.

That night, basking in the glow of the team's second win of the season, he was seated just behind the van's driver.

Taylor had fallen asleep sometime before the North Carolina state line. He woke up in a hospital back in Tennessee.

The driver of the other vehicle died. But of the 13 Appalachian State personnel on the van, 11 of whom were injured, Taylor had the worst of it.

A metal hinge had dug into the front of his head, creating a 6-inch gash that bled profusely. His left wrist was shattered. His lower leg had been snapped.

Elliott and Searels got to Taylor, dragging him from the burning van. They laid him on the pavement.

They looked down at his battered body and, in a difficult moment, decided their friend probably wasn't going to make it.

"It looked like someone had taken an ax and stuck it right in the top of his head," Elliott said.

But then, oddly enough, Taylor opened his eyes. He says he vaguely remembers that, as if it were something from a dream.

The next thing he remembers is waking up in a hospital room. Taylor had been airlifted to Johnson City, where he'd spend the next 17 days, his body trying to heal and his mind trying to process what had happened.

Yet the worst part of the ordeal, beyond the giant cut on his head or the broken bones, was being away from the team.

A month after the accident, Taylor received healing by returning for the team's game vs. VMI. He was first met by, of course, Searels and Elliott. The team cheered when Taylor, in a wheelchair, rolled into the locker room. Fans did the same when he was recognized at the 50-yard line.

"That moment helped me get back," Taylor said. "I realized I was part of the family."

Doctors said it would take him a year to return to school, because of the mental and physical trauma. Taylor returned, though, two months after that VMI homecoming -- and only three months after the accident.

Taylor went on to earn his degree in 2003, motoring on toward his goal of becoming a coach.

The modest heroes

For their parts in saving Taylor's life, Best, Elliott and Searels received the Award of Valor from the NCAA.

It's not something given out annually. No, it's an honor that has only been awarded 13 times since 1974.

Elliott said the gravity of the award was humbling. So was the award ceremony in which the coaches were recognized.

Taylor couldn't attend, but he was there in a sense. During the event, the emcee read a letter that Taylor had written to the coaches.

The spelling wasn't letter-perfect, but the emotions inflected were better than perfection.

Elliott told Taylor last fall that he treasures that letter -- which is framed and on a desk in his office at Williams-Brice Stadium -- even more than the NCAA medal, which was sitting last week in a frame on the ground.

Both Elliott and Searels shrug off what they did that night. They claim that anyone would have helped.

"You do so many things in your life and you think winning a national championship is something that's going to define you," Elliott said. "But I think that night ..."

He trails off. You can see him thinking about those chaotic minutes.

"We weren't going to let anything stop us," he said. "We were going to save those guys."

When Taylor's mom informed him that Elliott and Searels rescued him, Taylor's reaction was a curious one. He barely flinched.

"People think I'm being nonchalant about it, but I wasn't surprised. I'm not surprised," Taylor said. "That's who they are. And they know I would've done the same thing for them."

Now 39, he's in his third season as an assistant coach at Topsail High School, just outside Wilmington, N.C.

After working with the team's running backs the past two seasons, this season will be his first as an offensive line coach. Just like Elliott and Searels.

The best job

Searels and Taylor both immediately come up with the same word to explain what makes Elliott a special coach. Passion, they say without even having to think.

Elliott has a unique ability to motivate his players. He's the first to jump on them when they err. He's the first to sprint to them when they succeed.

Elliott, 37, truly believes in what he's doing and teaching. Because of that, so do his players. The buy-in factor -- what every coach in America is striving for -- is off the charts.

"There's something about him," Taylor said. "He always gets the best out of them. The kids know he's going to work just as hard as they are."

Quarterbacks, running backs and receivers are the glamour guys in college football. Offensive linemen are forgotten -- until they mess up.

Yet he reminds them that no play would ever even have a chance of working without them doing their jobs.

Elliott says he asks every single recruit why there are five offensive linemen on a football field.

There are lots of puzzled looks and few answers. Even a reporter doesn't have a response.

"Nobody knows. Nobody has an idea," Elliott said. "I say, 'Because you're the most important people on the football team. That's why they put five of you out there to do that job.' "

Still skeptical about the uniqueness of Elliott's passion? Consider that, after graduating from Appalachian State, Elliott had taken a sales job. He had bought a nice house in his hometown.

Then Mountaineers coach Jerry Moore called him to join the staff as a student assistant, and Elliott bolted the following day for Boone, N.C. He didn't even bother to pack up his new house, leaving his parents to clean up the mess back in Camden.

"I still owe them for that one," he said.

Elliott left a good-paying job for one that netted him $7,000 a year. He left that cushy house for a 12-by-12, window-less closet in a building on campus that's since been condemned.

"I thought I had the best job in the world," he said. "Still do."

A Gamecock at heart

In a lot of ways, Elliott is an extension of his predecessor at South Carolina. Eric Wolford was similarly intense and ran a zone-blocking scheme that's not all that different than the one that Elliott brought from Appalachian State.

But there's a huge difference: Elliott, at his heart, is a Gamecock. He grew up a half-hour from South Carolina's campus. Elliott even played a state high school championship game at Williams-Brice Stadium.

His brother went to South Carolina. His dad has talked Gamecocks football at Camden Country Club for decades.

Elliott is clearly familiar with South Carolina's middling football history, of one step forward and 11 back. He's familiar, too, with the Gamecocks' recent offensive line woes.

He's keenly aware that many fans are locked in on his unit as the one that could make or break the team's 2010 season.

"I'm very aware of what people want to happen," he said. "And I'm very aware of what has happened. I came here to hope to change that. That was my whole reason for coming.

"It's a grand opportunity, to do something special at a place where, really, something special has never been done before."

There's hope. South Carolina's two-deep includes six healthy linemen that saw extensive time in 2009. There's a chance, Steve Spurrier said this week, that four seniors could start on the line for South Carolina.

Additionally, entering camp on Tuesday, there are a couple of freshmen who have already turned the coaches' heads.

The perfect day

Taylor doesn't get overly emotional and doesn't talk in dramatic tones when it comes to Oct. 1, 2000. That's why it's striking when he calls the accident "the best thing that's ever happened" to him.

He says it's done nothing but affirm his vocational choice -- because of the character shown by those coaches in that moment of crisis.

He wants to be like them, on and off the field.

"I once read that a perfect day is one in which you do something for somebody that can never be repaid," he wrote in the letter sitting on Elliott's desk. "There is nothing I can say or nothing that I can give that will ever measure up to being given my life back that night.

"But because of the lessons I have learned from these men and coach Jerry Moore and that other members of the App staff, I can only promise that I will try to make this and every day a perfect day."

Elliott, too, has a definition of a perfect day -- at least as it pertains to South Carolina football.

"To play for an SEC championship at the end of this season, to be there at the end, it would be something to bring the state of South Carolina to its knees," Elliott said. "I think that's exciting. I've been a part of some great things in my career. I'm just hoping it continues here."

Reach Travis Haney at thaney@postandcourier.com, check out the Gamecocks blog at postandcourier.com/blogs/gamecocks and follow him on Twitter (@gamecocksblog).