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South Carolina over the years ....
Posted on 8/13/14 at 4:42 pm
Posted on 8/13/14 at 4:42 pm
This thread MASH HERE got me thinking ...
It's a wonder we've survived.
Some of you here may remember the 70s and 80s at South Carolina, I dunno. For those that cannot remember those days - there were two decades of total pandemonium.
What is amazing to me is that we, somehow, continued to function during those two decades and we continued to make a little progress ... enough to eventually get us invited into the SEC.
Total up-and-down of emotions:
It really all started in 1969 when we felt we were just hitting our stride.
1969 we win the ACC Championship in Football, plus McGuire has us among the elite in basketball.
The better we got, the more the ACC fought to keep us down and we finally file suit against them in '71, we leave the conference in '72, and we win the suit shortly afterwards. We were right to challenge Tobacco Road by the way, and winning in court validated that fact.
But man oh man was there infighting among us ... our major boosters, our Board of Trustees, our President and head coaches ... you just cannot imagine.
Our football fortunes continued to improve. We would have won the ACC a few times with our football teams in the 70s ... and we appeared to be gaining an advantage over Clemson, especially with the big '75 win. Basketball was falling-off a little, but not much. We were still Top Ten year-in and year-out.
We hired Bobby Richardson, we hired Pam Parsons, we were making money ...
BAM!
Holderman is hired and the shite pot was stirred - mainly among our BoT members taking sides with coaches and Holderman sitting back and loving all the discontent he had started.
The local media, The State Newspaper, kept the shite spot stirred too ... constantly coming out with columns and articles slamming the school, slamming coaches, making accusations without a shred of proof.
Clemson goes into full-bore cheating in 1976. We were powerless to stop it because our leaders were all too busy fighting among themselves.
Jim Carlen almost attacks Terry Chick over accusations Chick made publicly about George Rogers' academics ... sheeeesh the local media was always up our asses.
McGuire gets run-out, with a $400k payout, equal to about three million these days. Bill Foster comes-in from Duke and proceeds to frick things up. We hire George Felton to replace him and Felton drank too much ... but we should have handled that differently. We alienated a bunch of our players, key players, important players, with the way we treated both Felton and McGuire.
Richard Bell totally flops as an interim coach between Carlin and Morrison ... we lose to Furman. Ouch.
A couple of years earlier we were hammered in a Sports Illustrated article about Pam Parsons, our outstanding women's basketball coach at the time, having lesbian relationships with some of her players.
Some of her players left the program. Parsons and Tina Buck leave the program in shame.
Holderman had us embroiled in a scandal with the Shah of Iran's widow. Plus he was hitting on the school boys and spending a lot of university money.
The Tommy Chaiken steroid scandal hits ... again, in a Sports Illustrated article. Major sanctions. Best recruiting class in history to that point falls apart.
Joe Morrison dies in the shower.
Holderman indicted.
How we survived the 70s and 80s I do not know. Absolutely piss poor leadership.
But not only did we survive, we are now flourishing. Thank Dr. John Palms, he turned it around. Proof that it all starts at the top.
We are absolutely ginning now. We've surpassed Clemson, that's a done deal. More money, more power, more clout in the SEC .... but how we got here still just amazes me.
Do you realize how fortuitous it was for us to be admitted into the SEC and how tough it was for us to battle our way to where we are now?
What finally got us over the hump in everything was that first baseball national championship. That was the first step on the latest flight upwards to serious prominence, but damn it was a long time coming.
It's a wonder we've survived.
Some of you here may remember the 70s and 80s at South Carolina, I dunno. For those that cannot remember those days - there were two decades of total pandemonium.
What is amazing to me is that we, somehow, continued to function during those two decades and we continued to make a little progress ... enough to eventually get us invited into the SEC.
Total up-and-down of emotions:
It really all started in 1969 when we felt we were just hitting our stride.
1969 we win the ACC Championship in Football, plus McGuire has us among the elite in basketball.
The better we got, the more the ACC fought to keep us down and we finally file suit against them in '71, we leave the conference in '72, and we win the suit shortly afterwards. We were right to challenge Tobacco Road by the way, and winning in court validated that fact.
But man oh man was there infighting among us ... our major boosters, our Board of Trustees, our President and head coaches ... you just cannot imagine.
Our football fortunes continued to improve. We would have won the ACC a few times with our football teams in the 70s ... and we appeared to be gaining an advantage over Clemson, especially with the big '75 win. Basketball was falling-off a little, but not much. We were still Top Ten year-in and year-out.
We hired Bobby Richardson, we hired Pam Parsons, we were making money ...
BAM!
Holderman is hired and the shite pot was stirred - mainly among our BoT members taking sides with coaches and Holderman sitting back and loving all the discontent he had started.
The local media, The State Newspaper, kept the shite spot stirred too ... constantly coming out with columns and articles slamming the school, slamming coaches, making accusations without a shred of proof.
Clemson goes into full-bore cheating in 1976. We were powerless to stop it because our leaders were all too busy fighting among themselves.
Jim Carlen almost attacks Terry Chick over accusations Chick made publicly about George Rogers' academics ... sheeeesh the local media was always up our asses.
McGuire gets run-out, with a $400k payout, equal to about three million these days. Bill Foster comes-in from Duke and proceeds to frick things up. We hire George Felton to replace him and Felton drank too much ... but we should have handled that differently. We alienated a bunch of our players, key players, important players, with the way we treated both Felton and McGuire.
Richard Bell totally flops as an interim coach between Carlin and Morrison ... we lose to Furman. Ouch.
A couple of years earlier we were hammered in a Sports Illustrated article about Pam Parsons, our outstanding women's basketball coach at the time, having lesbian relationships with some of her players.
Some of her players left the program. Parsons and Tina Buck leave the program in shame.
Holderman had us embroiled in a scandal with the Shah of Iran's widow. Plus he was hitting on the school boys and spending a lot of university money.
The Tommy Chaiken steroid scandal hits ... again, in a Sports Illustrated article. Major sanctions. Best recruiting class in history to that point falls apart.
Joe Morrison dies in the shower.
Holderman indicted.
How we survived the 70s and 80s I do not know. Absolutely piss poor leadership.
But not only did we survive, we are now flourishing. Thank Dr. John Palms, he turned it around. Proof that it all starts at the top.
We are absolutely ginning now. We've surpassed Clemson, that's a done deal. More money, more power, more clout in the SEC .... but how we got here still just amazes me.
Do you realize how fortuitous it was for us to be admitted into the SEC and how tough it was for us to battle our way to where we are now?
What finally got us over the hump in everything was that first baseball national championship. That was the first step on the latest flight upwards to serious prominence, but damn it was a long time coming.
4
Posted on 8/13/14 at 5:15 pm to scrooster
quote:
Some of you here may remember the 70s and 80s at South Carolina, I dunno. For those that cannot remember those days - there were two decades of total pandemonium.
Wasn't born then but I remember when we were celebrating the 1984 team one season Hold said he really thought they had built something sustainable but it all fell a part. Yeah a few years later we had some respectable 8-4 seasons but I guess the steroid scandal derailed everything correct? And then we joined the SEC and we weren't even close to an SEC level team, both in talent and relative facilities correct?
quote:
1969 we win the ACC Championship in Football, plus McGuire has us among the elite in basketball.
Yeah isn't it crazy? We won the football title in '69, won the basketball title in '70 and then left in '71.
eta: I can't remember who but there is a host on 107.5 who will sometimes mention that he believes that the worst thing that we ever did for our athletic program was leave the ACC.. but the best thing we ever did was join the SEC.
This post was edited on 8/13/14 at 5:16 pm
Posted on 8/14/14 at 7:29 am to scrooster
quote:
Jim Carlen almost attacks Terry Chick over accusations Chick made publicly about George Rogers' academics ... sheeeesh the local media was always up our asses.
Glad we have the Dodie now.
quote:
What finally got us over the hump in everything was that first baseball national championship. That was the first step on the latest flight upwards to serious prominence, but damn it was a long time coming.
We're just a quality piece of hardware away in football.
Posted on 8/15/14 at 2:39 pm to scrooster
Hell of a post scrooster. I didn't fully realize everything that happened back in those days...my love affair for the Gamecocks began in '84 during the Black Magic days when I was 10 years old. No doubt we were both wise and lucky in joining the SEC in '92 (my freshman year at Carolina by the way). Thanks for sharing 
Posted on 8/16/14 at 10:30 am to scrooster
good stuff scrooster. some other little tidbits to your story. we were in close discussion w/ FSU, Penn St. and I think Miami to create our own conference in the 80's. word got out to the Big 10, who decided to grab Penn St. SEC expansion was started by Dick Bestwick, who was Vince Dooley's right hand man at UGA and also worked some at the SEC office. Bestwick & Dooley had actually brought up the subject at a SEC meeting of expanding and adding USC in the 80's before PSU's jump to the B10. we then hired Bestwick to be AD to replace Marcum who was fired. Bestwick, w/ Dooley's support again made a plea to the SEC for expansion w/ USC. Bestwick didn't last long at USC because of health issues, but he supposedly did get the SEC to create an expansion committee to explore the idea. some USC BOT members were aware of what was going on and lobbying for support w/ UGA. King Dixon just walked into the situation. I learned this from one of the BOT members that was involved.
A few years ago, I actually met Dick Bestwick in Athens who later retired from UGA and he confirmed it all (in front of a bunch of UGA friends that didn't realize that UGA played such an integral role.)
I agree we had a lot of missed opportunities to do something great like w/ Dietsel and Carlen, but the SEC more than made up for it. I wish the University would do something to recognize Dick Bestwick's contribution.
A few years ago, I actually met Dick Bestwick in Athens who later retired from UGA and he confirmed it all (in front of a bunch of UGA friends that didn't realize that UGA played such an integral role.)
I agree we had a lot of missed opportunities to do something great like w/ Dietsel and Carlen, but the SEC more than made up for it. I wish the University would do something to recognize Dick Bestwick's contribution.
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