Matlock thriving in new role at USC

Allisha Gray needs her hairband, A’ja Wilson has to keep those specially designed shinguards tight and best believe Dawn Staley is going to be crunching her molars on several Wint O Green Life Savers every afternoon.

It’s a lot of work, but Chris Matlock is used to that. It’s just now he’s the man behind the scenes of South Carolina women’s basketball, not South Carolina football.

“The numbers part of it is the biggest deal, because we don’t have as much,” Matlock said. “But detail? We have more details for every game, every practice.”

The list for just one day of practice or a game is extensive. The towels players hand off during substitutions have to be rolled and taped and every woman has to have extra shoes, socks, tights, pads, undershirts, shorts and jerseys, just in case. It’s certainly not as bulky as coordinating 115 sets of football helmets, shoulder pads and knee braces, but it’s still a burden of a job.

Not that Matlock – and it’s always “Matlock,” never “Chris” – looks at it that way. He’s very good at it and loves to do it, so his job mostly seems like paid vacation.

“I’m very grateful to coach Staley. She’s welcomed me to the program. I got to go on the team retreat with them and interacted with the kids, and the kids are always, ‘Hey Matlock! How you doing?,’ ” he said. “When the football players are coming over for classes, they see me interacting with them … It’s been wonderful.”

He’s a familiar figure, white towel wrapped around his neck, the ends tucked into his USC warmup jacket, usually trundling a cart loaded with boxes. The football team saw him every day from spring 2000 to April 22, 2016, as he coordinated the Gamecocks’ equipment under Lou Holtz and Steve Spurrier.

But when Will Muschamp was hired last season, change was in the air. Football coaches usually like to have their own people around, from assistant coaches on down, and while Matlock and his staff weren’t immediately let go, they knew it was a possibility.

“Everybody’s anxious, because you never know what’s going to happen. I didn’t know what to expect,” Matlock said. “But I told everybody, ‘Just go in, do our jobs. Let’s do the best we can because that’s the professional way to do it.’ ”

The staff was kept intact through Muschamp’s first spring practice, but two weeks after the spring game, Matlock and his crew were summoned to Muschamp’s office. Muschamp said he wanted to go in a different direction, and that was that.

It was surprising, Matlock said, because they had gone through the spring, but not unexpected in terms of Muschamp re-designing the staff. Larry Waters was hired from Alabama to oversee USC’s football equipment, and Matlock and his staff were suddenly looking for new gigs.

Enter Ray Tanner and Charles Waddell. The two created a spot of Director of Olympic Sports Equipment Operations, and Matlock was appointed. Matlock’s former football assistant, Ryan Fischer, coordinates baseball and softball equipment after a brief post-football sojourn with the Gamecock Club.

The bulk of Matlock’s work is with women’s basketball (Mac Credille, who’s been around for more than 40 years, continues to handle men’s basketball), but Matlock works with Credille and the other sports’ handlers to keep USC clothed and prepared for every practice.

“Most of the teams are self-contained,” Matlock said. “But it’s all interchangeable. We share the duties. We call it brother-in-lawing.”

Matlock’s new office is the old “Cockpit” meeting room at Carolina Coliseum, where he’s half a tunnel away from the basketball practice courts. Half the room is a conference table and chairs, the other half is locker stalls filled with uniforms and stacks of Gatorade, travel supplies and Life Savers – got to have those Life Savers.

Matlock doesn’t miss football and is thriving in his new spot. Instant familiarity helped a lot.

“Right now, I’m happy. Everything’s going well,” he said. “We’re getting rolling right now. It’s been a little different, but there’s not as many numbers as there used to be.”

This story was originally published January 15, 2017 at 10:26 PM with the headline "Matlock thriving in new role at USC."