The recent success of the South Carolina Gamecocks women’s basketball team – finishing this season as a runner-up – is the right time to remind both local South Carolinians and the rest of the world about a few notable athletes originally coming from The Palmetto State.
South Carolina has been fertile ground for developing successful athletes for decades. Even this season, the aforementioned Gamecocks have put at least three notable players in the spotlight: Joyce Edwards, Tessa Johnson, and MiLaysia Fulwiley. Although, seeded No.1 after the regular season, the Gamecocks were not the bookies’ favorite in the final match against the UConn Huskies – most sites for global bettors and local audiences favored the Connecticut NCAA Women’s team, with the odds revolving around -320, i.e., 1.90. They were right because the Huskies won 82-59.
Nevertheless, we’ll see the aforementioned Gamecocks’ triplets in future games, for sure, and sports analysts are already forecasting successful professional careers for each of them.
Joe Frazier was also a promising boxer from an early age. Born in 1944 in Beaufort, SC, in a family of ten, Frazier had to fight for his place in this world (both physically and metaphorically). His sturdiness and persistence have turned him into one of the greatest heavyweight boxers of all time. Winning the Olympic gold medal in the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo as an amateur was only a warm up for what came later: he was the undisputed heavyweight champion from 1970 to 1973. His most famous match was held on March 8, 1971, when he defeated Muhammad Ali at Madison Square Garden. It was Ali’s first defeat in his professional boxing career.
Pete Maravich wasn’t born in South Carolina, but he left a certain mark on the local NCAA scene. Originally born in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, Maravich played at Daniel High School in Central, SC, from 1961 to 1963 – it was a sort of intermezzo before he was old enough to actually enroll in school. After rising to stardom during his university years at the Louisiana State University, he was drafted by the Atlanta Hawks in 1970. In the end, he was a 5-time NBA All-Star player, with an average of 24.2 points per game during his 10-year NBA career span.
Maravich’s basketball colleague Kevin Garnett is a South Carolina original. Born in Greenville, he played basketball at Mauldin High School in Mauldin, SC. However, before the senior year of high school, he moved to Chicago, due to some family-related issues. During his NBA career, he won everything worth winning: the NBA ring with the Celtics in 2008 and the MVP title in 2004 with the Timberwolves, with 15 All-Star game appearances. Kevin Garnett has also become a member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
The last athlete in this edition of top SC athletes is James Edward Rice, a former Boston Red Sox left fielder and designated hitter, born in Anderson, South Carolina. During the span of 16 years of his MLB career, Rice had 382 home runs, appeared in 8 All-Star games, and won an MVP title in 1978. A member of the Baseball Hall of Fame, James Edward Rice is another South Californian who has paved the way for those who came later, including rising sports stars under the Palmetto State sun.