Gamecocks' Martin Loses It After LSU Loss

by Larry Leo

February 15, 20139 Comments

Following South Carolina’s 64-46 home loss to LSU, coach Frank Martin delivered an epic press conference rant that was almost Jim Mora-like. You can watch the whole thing here. But below are some of the best excerpts...

quote:
MARTIN (possibly chewing on a Jolly Rancher): Ummm… I hadn’t seen the stats. Unbelievable. If you take Bruce Ellington off our team, you probably have 12 leading candidates for the Walking – what’s that movie called? – the Return of the Living Dead. The zombie movie. If you took Bruce off our team, our guys would probably win an Academy for their performance in that movie.

I’ve been doing this for 28 years, nine of which was a junior varsity high school coach. That means I dealt with 14-year-olds. I’ve never been more embarrassed to call myself a basketball coach than I am today.

(Reporter asks question)

If this were the NBA, we’d take their money. We’d fine ‘em. We’d release ‘em and say “Good luck finding another job.” It’s not the NBA. We’re in education. So somehow, some way we’ve got to reach ‘em… No matter what your walk of life is, if you don’t have the word pride in your vocabulary, you’ve got no chance of sniffing success. I’m a lot of things. But I’ve got pride. I’m doing this right now out of respect to you and your jobs and it’s part of my job. But right now I’m so embarrassed. If this is the way my team plays, I should never coach basketball again.

We lead the country in airball layups. If you can’t make layups, it’s hard to win.

My assistant coach said right before the game, “I don’t like what’s going on right now. The locker room’s a morgue.” And that’s exactly what it was. If you’ve got no life for what you do, then you shouldn’t do it. If you have no passion for what you do, you shouldn’t do it. Right now we’re lifeless.

You control who you are every day in life. If you walk around with your head down and your shoulders down, then you’ve got no chance at what you’re doing.

You can’t expect 18- and 19-year olds to figure that out. Us guys that have been around, it’s our job to help them through it.

REPORTER: Do you think you’ve lost these guys?

MARTIN: If I’ve lost them, then they better disappear, because it’s going to be hard for them to be here next year if I’ve lost them 10 months into the job.

Filed Under: SEC Sports

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MaroonNation•134 months

Not going to lie. If I was USCe's AD I would have walked on stage and slapped that Jolly Rancher out of his mouth. It's one thing for him to sit there looking like a sulking cro-magnon monkey but for the money I paid him he would not have embarrassed my school by chomping on fricking candy and giving overdramatic pauses while giving a press conference, especially after having his arse handed to him by a inferior team. For a coach to throw every player of his other than Spurrier's boy under the bus is beyond the most sincere form of unprofessional conduct and malcontempt for his boss and his employer.

BoudreauxinGA•134 months

This is exactly why I'm excited about LSU basketball. They are not the most talented team to play for the P&G, and they make mistakes, but the effort is there each and every time out. And they are improving slowly. Martin is right. I went to the game last night. The deserving team won big and the team that got embarrassed got exactly what they deserved. I'm surprised the gym had 7000 plus. The Gamecock fans around me were pissed and they should be. When you pay good money to see your team, you have certain expectations, win or lose. They are getting ripped off. We sat in plain view of Martin and his bench. He was visably pissed off all night long.

ellessuuuu•134 months

"I would not play for this guy."

You should it make you a better person. Instead of making excuses for poor effort he was honest about it, that's nice to see. You can't control how much talent you have, but you can control effort. Yes, his team's effort last night was poor.

Carson123987•134 months

martin is the man

RummelTiger•134 months

Funny that the UK fan is saying how the USC coach threw his players under the bus...

TenTex•134 months

Can I get this 11 minutes back?

purpleleaf•134 months

good you fixed it.

UKWildcatsFAN•134 months

I would not play for this guy. He throws all of his players under the bus except one? Why would I go hard for you if you constantly talk bad about me in front of the entire sports world?

This guy seems on edge all of the time. USC fans you can get better than this.

purpleleaf•134 months

"You can watch the whole thing here."

Actually that link is just the highlights of the game. If you are going to post a link for the press conference, please link it correctly.