Former Citadel football coach Brent Thompson is trading the playbook for a cream shop

JAMES ISLAND, SC (WCIV) — The college football landscape has done a 180 in recent years.

So does Brent Thompson, who has spent a career coaching, including seven seasons as the Citadel’s head coach. Hours and work ethic were never an issue for Thompson. Honestly, on the summer training ground, the freezer sounds pretty appealing.

“In the last four years, the college football scene has changed so much,” Thompson said. “Being a small career college football guy, it was a challenge.”

Football will always be football. But NIL, the transfer portal and the removal of the cut block changed his game. Thompson changed his game plan.

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“It took me a while,” Thompson said. “(It) took me a solid three or four months to make the final decision. A couple of things. Number 1, I wanted to run and own my own business. When I was at The Citadel, I met a lot of business owners. It’s something I could do and would like to do if I ever left college football — not thinking I would ever leave, I don’t know that this is the end of coaching for me, but it’s the end of coaching now.”

His offense is always different from others. So is his frozen treat – Whit’s Frozen Custard.

“I had never tasted frozen custard before we opened it,” he said. “They swore by it. They loved it.”

After 18 months of X’s and O’s drawing up and two weeks of “boot camp”, the store opened on James Island last month. Since then, Thompson has been there every day.

“Your name is on this business, just like it was in The Citadel football and all the other places I’ve worked,” Thompson said. “Word is spreading, so hopefully we’ll continue to do well. We’ve had positive feedback. We’ll continue to grow and develop our flavors.”

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Football is far from being forgotten.

“I go in every morning and do the cream, set up the shop. Do a little cleaning in here. It’s time to get my mind right. Focus for the day and then, game time is like 7-9 for us,” Thompson said. “We ramped up, we get a long line out the door and that becomes our game day. (I) Looking forward to this. At the end of the day, I (I) look at my stats and check my stats against the previous week. and try to improve so that we can compete every day.”

I saw three handles: does that mean they have a triple option?

“I’ll always have some kind of triple option,” Thompson said with a laugh.