Shane Beamer on Rahsul Faison hiring NIL lawyer: ‘Nothing we directed him to do’

South Carolina Gamecocks running back Rahsul Faison has been waiting to hear from the NCAA if he’ll receive a waiver to play in 2025. Now, he’s looking for answers and has announced that he hired an NIL lawyer.

Head coach Shane Beamer met with reporters in Greenville on Thursday afternoon. There, he admitted that hiring lawyers was a decision Faison made and that it wasn’t prompted by the program.

“Yeah, that was nothing that we directed him to do,” Shane Beamer said. “That was nothing that we set up for him. I saw it on social media like y’all did. I said, ‘Okay, that’s cool.’ That was really Rahsul, and I think that is just kind of the next step.”

Rahsul Faison retained attorney Darren Heitner, who has worked with South Carolina’s Myles Stute to help him receive a hardship waiver to play for the men’s basketball team in 2025-26. This comes as Faison is looking to get a waiver for his JUCO season, similar to the one that Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia received.

After going to Marshall in 2019, Faison used a grayshirt. After that, he transferred to the JUCO ranks, and in 2021 and 2022, he played for Snow College, though he was only on the football team there for one season. He’d later transfer to Utah State and now South Carolina.

“Like I said the other night, I understand the NCAA has a lot on their plate,” Beamer said. “But there are a lot of things in the balance here, and it is something that we have been trying to get an answer on since January. I think Rahsul felt like it was the next thing to do to try and maybe fast forward this thing along.”

Last season, Rahsul Faison rushed for 1,109 yards on 5.6 yards per attempt with eight touchdowns at Utah State. He also caught 22 passes for 99 yards.

Shane Beamer calls out NCAA over Rahsul Faison waiver delay

The frustration is clearly growing for Shane Beamer, Rahsul Faison, and the rest of the South Carolina program. Spring practice has come and gone, and it’s still unclear what his status is for 2025. It’s not surprising that Beamer is getting frustrated.

“It’s getting frustrating just to be completely frank. I understand that the NCAA has a lot on their plate, but the fact that they’ve had everything they needed from us since January and we don’t have an answer is, frankly, disappointing. We’ve given them everything they needed. …We’ve been in contact with other schools that he was at to get stuff from them to give them what they needed,” Beamer said.

“Again, I know they have a lot on their plate, but the fact that we’re now in the middle of May and we still don’t have an answer and we just went through a portal window where we didn’t add a running back but we don’t have an answer on whether or not we’re gonna have three scholarship running backs on our team or four, five, whatever it is. That’s tough when you talk about planning for 2025.”