March 24, 2006

The University of South Carolina football squad was greeted by cool temperatures as they went through practice number seven of the 15 scheduled during the spring session at the “Proving Grounds” of the Bluff Road practice fields on Friday.

Following the session, Head Coach Steve Spurrier announced that redshirt freshman defensive end Shea McKeen had been arrested late Thursday night and was indefinitely suspended from the squad.

The Gamecocks will hold a scrimmage on Saturday morning at Williams-Brice Stadium, beginning at 10:30 a.m. Fans are invited to attend.

Coach Spurrier met with the media following the workout:

“A little chilly today, but we got a pretty decent practice in. Guys were flying around and we’re looking forward to the scrimmage tomorrow. We’ll see if we can get a little bit better.

“We had a player arrested last night. Shea McKeen was arrested and in all likelihood he probably won’t play for us anymore. We’ll wait for the investigation to come out. It’s unfortunate, but he’s suspended indefinitely and he’s probably finished unless something reveals a different story to what happened. It is embarrassing and I apologize because this is a guy we recruited. When you recruit one and they are trouble-makers, or appear to be, it makes you feel bad, so we have to do a better job of recruiting the right kind of kids. We’re going to mess up occasionally, like we did with this one guy. We’re not going to have guys represent us the way this guy did last night.

On tomorrow’s scrimmage: “We look for each player to play his assignment and make a play or two. We’re going to practice everybody about the same amount – mostly the younger guys, the guys who haven’t played much, which is about the whole team. We’re going to try to improve, try to get better.

On the coaching clinic: “I think we got 250, 300 (coaches attending), something like that. Coach McKissick is speaking tonight.”