Spencer Rattler, Mike Hold and an enduring quarterback connection at South Carolina

Mike Hold is sitting at Starbucks, scrolling through his phone until he finds the picture.

His guest has never seen it, which Hold finds incredible because he’s got a stack of poster prints laying inside a closet at his house. And more often than he can believe, somebody will call him asking if he can sign one and ship it to them.

The photo in question is from the final regular-season snap of the 1984 “Black Magic” season, perhaps the indelible image from Hold’s time at South Carolina.

The still frame shows him from the back, grasping a pigskin and dangling it in front of Clemson’s 300-pound behemoth William “Refrigerator” Perry just before the clock struck zero on South Carolina’s 22-21 victory over the Tigers.

Every year around this week, the photo will circulate as South Carolina fans seek motivation and inspiration ahead of the Palmetto Bowl.

Last Thursday, Hold was at a beer garden when he was introduced to a man who did not say a single word. Instead, he extended his arm, held his fist in front of Hold’s face and dropped an imaginary ball

“You know what that is, right?” the guy said.

“Yep,” Hold said.

His days at South Carolina feel like a lifetime ago. The fact that anyone still knows — or cares — about what Hold did as a Gamecock baffles him. He wasn’t George Rogers. He wasn’t Marcus Lattimore. But he was the quarterback of, arguably, the best team in South Carolina history.

These days, he’s simply a Columbia resident who spends his Saturdays sitting inside Williams-Brice Stadium like 80,000 others. Like so many, too, he fixates on USC quarterback Spencer Rattler. Watches him. Pulls for him. Sometimes winces for him. And in some ways, he is watching his younger self.

Forty years ago, Mike Hold moved from Arizona to South Carolina — just like Rattler. Hold (Mesa Community College) transferred to USC — just like Rattler (Oklahoma). He played quarterback for the Gamecocks — just like Rattler. He wore No. 7 — just like Rattler. He beat Clemson in his first try — just like Rattler.

We as humans root for our own. We champion those who we feel connected to. Who remind us of ourselves. And, so, this Saturday, Hold will sit in Williams-Brice Stadium with his wife, Nicole, and his 16-year-old daughter, Hudsen, roaring for Rattler.

“I pull hard for him because he’s from Arizona. On top of that he plays at Carolina,” Hold said. “And I’m wearing his number. I joke, well kind of seriously: In the old days, it used to be ‘Mike Hold, No. 7.’ Now, it’s ‘Mike Hold, 7b.’”

Hold is not mad about being behind Rattler in anything. He’s not sure if Rattler is the best quarterback in South Carolina history, but Hold has no problem saying he’s in the top “two or three.”

If South Carolina beats Clemson and makes a bowl game, Rattler will likely set the South Carolina single-season passing yards record. (He’s currently 490 yards behind Dylan Thompson’s high mark of 3,564.) If not, he needs just 133 yards to pass Todd Ellis for second.

He will almost undoubtedly finish the year with the most completions and the highest completion percentage in school history. It’s possible that many will look at Rattler’s 2023 season as the best ever played by a South Carolina quarterback — despite him being sacked more than almost any quarterback in America.

“There’s something special about Spencer,” Hold said. “He can make all the throws. But the thing that impresses me most is his feet. Extending plays. … He’s a drop-back quarterback that makes things happen with his feet. It’s very impressive.”

How they got to South Carolina

There is something beautiful about how divergent paths can lead to the same place.

Coming out of Pinnacle High School in Phoenix, Rattler was the best football player in Arizona. He was the top quarterback in the country. He had an offer from just about every school in America. Problem was: You knew he had an offer from every school in America.

Humility was not among Rattler’s best traits. Almost two full years separated when Rattler committed to Oklahoma and when he officially enrolled there — and Rattler spent very few days in those 24 months not repping a Sooners hat or slides or something.

“He’s coming to practice and (has) his OU gear on under his Pinnacle gear,” his dad Michael Rattler said in one of the first scenes of the Netflix show Rattler starred in, QB1: Under the Lights. “I’m like, ‘Uh-uh. No.’ ”

The Netflix show portrayed him as an arrogant 17-year old. Case in point: There is a highly trafficked video on YouTube titled: “Spencer Rattler in High School Being a Bad Teammate.”

Rattler was suspended from the Pinnacle football team for the back half of his senior season for breaking a district code of conduct policy. When he was supplanted by Caleb Williams at Oklahoma, very few who watched the Netflix show felt bad for Rattler. He arrived at South Carolina needing a second chance, a fresh start.

“(I’m) very appreciative of everything that’s happened to me here,” Rattler said. “My goal (was) to come in, give 110% to this program, to this team, to my coaches. That’s all I really wanted to do. Everything else will take care of itself.”

Hold arrived in Columbia 39 years earlier, simply needing a start.

He attended Corona Del Sol High School in Tempe, Arizona, about a half-hour drive south from where Rattler suited up.

Whereas Rattler had college coaches begging, hounding him for years to consider them, Hold had no attention. He quarterbacked a state championship team as a senior at Corona, but not many colleges were in the market for a 5-foot-8 QB.

Just one school showed interest and, so, he attended Mesa Community College. After a season there, he took four visits to bigger schools. In fact, Oklahoma actually wanted him to walk on … but as a punter.

South Carolina and Miami (Ohio) were the only two schools to offer him as a quarterback — and Miami coach Tom Reed was so disturbed by Hold’s failure to identify coverages on a visit that he told the youngster, “You will never play real college football.”

Somehow, only one school in America was willing to give Hold a scholarship to play quarterback. How the Gamecocks even knew about a short quarterback playing junior-college football 2,000 miles away involves a coincidence so grand that Hold can only chalk up to it being “a God thing.”

Basically, when Joe Morrison left New Mexico to become the coach at South Carolina, his defensive coordinator Joe Lee Dunn took over as head coach. While watching film of Mesa CC, Dunn noticed a quarterback running the veer offense. Dunn did not know Mesa ran that for one game because their O-line was struggling, or else he may not have called up Morrison and told him to take a look at a guy named Mike Hold.

Even after all that, though, Hold wanted to stay home and walk on at nearby Arizona State. It took constant calls from Gamecocks offensive coordinator Frank Sadler and the insistence from Hold’s parents they wouldn’t help him pay for school if he went to ASU for him to commit to South Carolina.

“I knew what was right in my heart,” Hold says now. “In the back of my mind, I knew what was right. And it was the best decision I ever made in my life. I could have gone to Arizona State and won a national championship — let’s say. Today, who am I? Nobody.

Hold continues: “Here, 40 years later — we won 10 games, most in school history at the time — and people still wanna talk to me. It’s crazy. … I can’t imagine my life not coming here.”

Admiration follows Spencer Rattler

Saturday could be Rattler’s final collegiate game. This week, he accepted an invitation to the Reese’s Senior Bowl, a pretty clear indication that he’ll be setting his sights on the NFL Draft after the Clemson game.

“It could be my last time out there (at Williams-Brice Stadium),” Rattler said. “You never know, I’ve got another year of eligibility as well.”

Over coffee last week, Hold was laying out reason after reason that Rattler might stay in Columbia. If he was a projected first-rounder, Hold said, it’s a no-brainer to leave. But if he might not be picked until the fourth or fifth round, why not come back? Why not cash in on the NIL? Why not enjoy one more year in college? Why not turn into undoubtedly the best quarterback in South Carolina history?

“He could be a god here with these fans,” Hold said. “Football will only last for so long, and he’ll probably make generational money, but that’s besides the point. After football’s over, he can come back here, start a business and make tons of money because people love him.”

That last part is amazing.

Hold, like so many others, watched the “QB1: Beyond the Lights” show. The Spencer Rattler portrayed on that show hardly resembles the man currently leading South Carolina.

“Obviously you’re gonna grow up a bunch in college,” Hold said. “Everything I hear from players, coaches, people who know him, he’s like the most genuine, down-to-Earth, nice guy you could ask for.”

The Rattler today almost avoids the spotlight. His press conferences are measured. Almost every answer includes a “We.” He very seldom shines light on himself. He almost feels like a grandfather figure in college football, a stoic figure who has seen so much, dealt with so much and works so hard to lift up others.

Though USC coach Shane Beamer believes much of what makes Rattler so admired now was always with him.

“He’s the same guy in so many ways — and that allowed him to get through those battles and adversity that he faced,” Beamer said. “He’s obviously improved as a player and is older. But in a lot of ways, he’s the same guy.”

Hold has never met Rattler. He doubts that Rattler knows who he is, or that he’s heard about the connection between the two South Carolina quarterbacks born in Arizona who wear No. 7. But if Rattler doesn’t know the connection, Hudsen Hold does.

“My daughter loves Spencer Rattler. Oh my God. (She thinks) he’s the greatest thing since sliced bread,” Hold said. “Because he’s the quarterback. Because he plays for Carolina. Because he’s from Arizona. Because he wears No. 7.”

On Saturday, for what could be Spencer Rattlers’ final game, Hold will be sitting in section 8, row 9, cheering for a guy who resembles his younger self in so many ways. He will also be watching his daughter, who has fallen in love with football, in part, because her father moved from Arizona to South Carolina and, 40 years later, another young man did the same.

“I’d like to meet him,” Hold says. “But, if I could, I’d like her to meet him. She loves that guy.”