Longtime U.S. politician Nancy Mace is defending her appearance at a Week 3 college football game over the weekend.
Politicians have been making appearances at sporting events for decades. However, in recent years, the trend has become a bit more controversial. President Trump has taken heat for attending several prominent sporting events. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani faced some backlash for attending an expensive NBA Finals game.
Mace, who has served as the U.S. representative for South Carolina’s 1st congressional district since 2021, was in attendance at South Carolina’s Week 3 college football game on Saturday. It was not a good one for the Gamecocks.
South Carolina fell to Mississippi State, 41-34, as Gamecocks fans chanted “Fire Beamer!” in the fourth quarter.
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The longtime U.S. politician faced some backlash for her appearance at the game over the weekend.
However, she’s made it clear that she’s not apologizing for supporting the Gamecocks, even when they’re struggling.
“Go COCKS!” she wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
“IYKYK.”
Shane Beamer remains disappointed by the outcome
South Carolina’s head coach wasn’t happy with how things transpired on Saturday.
“Like I said last night, disappointing night. I thought our guys handled the delay really well. Proud of the way we started the game. We had told the players the night before that if we won the toss, we were going to take the ball, and we needed to execute and go down the field offensively and that’s exactly what we did. Defensively, to get a turnover on the first play, then I think we only played five plays on defense in the entire first quarter. Offense was moving the ball, so it was a great start. I thought we played really, really physical throughout the night. That was a physical football game, and our guys were getting after it from a physicality standpoint, which I was really excited to see. I thought the pass protection overall was really good against a good defense. So, plenty…some positives to find from last night. But just looking at it, just an atrocious third quarter in all three phases: kicking off, punting the football, playing offense, playing defense. Just really disappointed with the third quarter, to play and perform like we did. Play and coach. The turnovers, the critical penalties last night, the field position that they started drives with, particularly in the third quarter, was an uphill climb. But regardless, defensively, they got put in some tough situations in the third quarter, but we’ve got to put the ball down and go get a stop and put the fire out, if you will, after a sudden-change situation,” he said on Sunday.
“We lost to a really good team last night that is going to win a bunch of football games this season with that quarterback they have, the speed they have at receiver, and the way they’re able to junk it up and play really, really good defense. They’re going to be a hard team to beat throughout the season. We had an opportunity last night to win the football game, and we didn’t perform well consistently enough. That’s going to be the key for us to get better this week, be more consistent Saturday night and respond. We’re well on our way to doing that right now. We had a good team meeting this afternoon, special teams meetings. We’re finishing up lifting and offense-defense meetings, and then we’ll get on the field for practice tonight. I know our guys hurt and are disappointed, but I know they’ll respond the right way.”
