As far as the fans are concerned in the SEC, football and
baseball are the King and Prince in the Royal Court. Outside of Kentucky, and sometimes Florida,
basketball is largely ignored or at best is a distant third in the pecking
order. Now this opinion has nothing to
do with TV contract revenue or which sport generates more funding for the
schools or any of that blah-blah-blah. I
am talking purely about what the fans actually put enthusiasm and focus.
That’s what makes Frank Martin’s job so difficult, and it’s
why Gamecock fans need to get behind him and keep him enthused as he goes
through his lumps these next few years.
Just like Spurrier and Tanner were allowed to do, if Martin can somehow
survive through that VERY difficult first 4 or 5 seasons, the entire culture
around basketball in Columbia might start to change.
Folks may look back on the Tanner and Spurrier eras at this
point and think they were all just instantaneous success stories but that is
far from the truth. After Spurrier’s
fourth season, USC had been pistol-whipped by Florida, Clemson and Iowa and the
coach was seriously thinking about leaving.
He instead plowed through it and our entire mindset about the gridiron
has been altered.
Now I will grant you that Coach Tanner’s road was a little
easier, but he had more history and tradition on his side coming in. Still, after losing to U-La-La in the 2000
Super Regionals, the nation’s best team on the diamond didn’t even get to
Omaha. It wasn’t until we had the
miracle against Miami and knocked Clemson out of Omaha in 2002 that Tanner was
completely secure.
And if you think those two situations were tough, now think
about what Coach Martin has in front of him.
Like Coach Tanner, he inherited a program that has tasted previous historical
success. The Frank McGuire era will
always be viewed as the one time hoops ruled in South Carolina. But the baseball program at least was still
mediocre and had a pulse when Tanner took the reigns. Bad, but not dead. USC basketball was a corpse when Martin
arrived. And at least football had the
SEC going for it which gave Spurrier the assists he needed with revenue,
visibility and facilities. Who gives a
rat’s rear end about basketball outside of Rupp Arena in the SEC?
I took my son to see the Carolina-Clemson hoops game last
week. What I saw was an ACC basketball
team that was bigger, stronger and faster impose its will on us and beat us
up. It was really what we looked like in
football imposing our will on Clemson at Death Valley this year. A bigger, stronger and faster SEC football
team just beating up an ACC team. So
no, I don’t envy Coach Martin, but I am dadgum glad he is in Columbia. Given the time and patience and space he
needs I think he could be our “hoops” Tanner or Spurrier.
It’s a great time to be a Gamecock!
Would love to bird dog for him here up in NYC if I had more time. Would like to meet him when he comes up here on the 22nd. After the baseball and football lead, this seems like natural evolutinary progression of a healthy sports program.
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