Former USC football coach Brad Lawing dies. Gamecocks community mourns loss

Former South Carolina football assistant Brad Lawing, a beloved defensive fixture who spent 17 seasons on the Gamecocks staff across two stints and helped coach Jadeveon Clowney to greatness, died Wednesday. He was 65.

Wayne Parris, Lawing’s brother-in-law, shared the news on his Facebook and Twitter pages Thursday morning and confirmed Lawing’s death to The State. Lawing died in his sleep, according to Parris.

“Our hearts are broken hearing this terrible news,” South Carolina’s football team said in a statement via Twitter. “Thoughts and prayers go out to the friends and family of a tremendous man and coach.”

“He was just a guy’s guy,” Gamecocks head coach Shane Beamer told The State. “Great stories about all the people he had worked with. I used to love hearing his stories about working for Nick Saban and all the different people he had been around in his career — Sparky Woods, Nick Saban. Just a regular guy. Loved his family. Loved coaching football. Didn’t have many other hobbies. He loved those two things and loved to recruit.”

Lawing worked at South Carolina from 1989 to 1998 and again from 2006 to 2012 under coach Steve Spurrier as a defensive line coach primarily working with edge rushers and outside linebackers.

During his first run in Columbia, he coached future NFL players Corey Miller, Gerald Dixon and Henry Taylor and, while working as a recruiting coordinator, helped bring eventual five-time Pro Bowl defensive end John Abraham to campus.

Returning to work on Spurrier’s staff in 2006, Lawing helped land and coached Clowney, the No. 1 overall pick of the 2014 NFL Draft. His unit led the Southeastern Conference in sacks in 2010 and 2012. South Carolina also finished in the top 15 nationally in total defense every year between 2008 and 2012 while recording back-to-back 11-win seasons in 2011 and 2012.

Lawing spent the bulk of his career working for high-profile head coaches, including Nick Saban (Michigan State), Spurrier (South Carolina), Jimbo Fisher (Florida State) and Mack Brown (Appalachian State). He most recently worked as the defensive line coach for former South Carolina assistant Shawn Elliott at Georgia State.

“Great coach. Loved football. Somebody that I learned a lot from,” Beamer said. “At Mississippi State I had coached defensive backs and running backs, so when I came here my first year I was coaching outside linebackers and really didn’t know much about it. He really helped me with pass-rush, teaching me those things.”

Lawing stepped down from that position at Georgia State after four months to concentrate on his health, according to the Post & Courier, and told the newspaper in May 2023 that “he had to get out of coaching because he was dealing with several maladies, but was recovering.”

Other NFL players Lawing worked with through his college coaching career, which spanned nearly four decades, included South Carolina’s Melvin Ingram and Florida’s Dante Fowler, Dominique Easley and DeMarcus Walker.

Born in Frankfurt, Germany, Lawing was a four-year starter at linebacker at Lenoir-Rhyne, graduating in 1979 and also earning a master’s degree from App State in 1985. He was inducted into Lenoir-Rhyne’s Sports Hall of Fame in 2015.