After 40 years, this USC coach still has a record to chase and tales to tell

Mark Berson is part South Carolina men’s soccer coach, part storyteller. Sit in his office for five minutes, and he’ll tell you about that time his team once stopped practice to help a bleacher delivery man.

“We pulled the bleachers out of the truck,” he said. “Thankfully for everybody at the university, we didn’t put the bleachers together. That would have been a big problem.”

Spend another five minutes, and he’ll take you to Feb. 19, 1992. The Carolina Coliseum is in awe at the sight of a 7-foot, 300-pound basketball player from LSU.

“Shaquille O’Neal took a rebound and ran the length of the court like a point guard and jammed it,” Berson said. “I’m like, ‘Wow, that’s a very big man to be doing that.’ ”

Give him a little longer, and he’ll get to working out with Steve Spurrier, taking advice from Frank McGuire, meeting Pele and coaching a founding member of Hootie & the Blowfish.

Berson is three games into his 41st season at USC. He’s the first and only men’s soccer coach in school history. Since September 18, 1978, when Carolina beat Presbyterian 12-0 in the soccer program’s first game, USC football has gone through nine head coaches, USC men’s basketball has gone through eight and USC baseball four. USC women’s soccer wouldn’t come into existence until 17 years later.

When it comes to the University of South Carolina, Berson has pretty much seen it all. He delivers his tales about as well as he’s guided his Gamecocks to 489 wins, 22 NCAA Tournament appearances, two College Cups and a national runner-up. The 65-year-old still shows consistent passion and energy for his job.

It’s just that he’s not clocking in at the Roundhouse anymore.

“Every day is fun,” Berson said Monday from his second-floor office at the plush Rice Athletics Center. “Every day is fun and exciting and challenging. And what more can you ask for?

“People talk about the number of years. Really, it’s kind of irrelevant. It just doesn’t work that way. As soon as you start the season, you’re so deeply involved with the season and the lives of the players and what you’re trying to accomplish, it sorts of keeps rolling and keeps moving. And, then all of a sudden, it’s another year. And, then, OK, we’re just doing this again.”

That routine is destined to stop at some point. Just don’t expect it to be soon.

“You don’t really get forward by moving backward,” Berson continued. “When it’s all said and done, you maybe look backwards and kind of look at a few things. But right now, it’s just kind of like, ‘Yeah, we’re going.’ ”

Chasing records, making records

Like most long-tenured coaches, Berson has an office that could serve as a museum. There’s trophies, framed newspaper clippings and photos.

On Nov. 4 of last year, Berson could start to make space for an addition. South Carolina’s 1-0 win over UAB that evening gave Berson, who spent one season in charge of The Citadel, win No. 500 for his career. A commemorative ball, sitting on a shelf behind Berson’s chair, now symbolizes the achievement.

Berson’s at 501 after Friday’s loss to Clemson. It’s good enough for fourth all-time among NCAA Division I coaches. All those in front of him have long retired, including leader Jerry Yeagley. Yeagley, who ran Indiana from 1973-2003, walked away with 544 victories.

Give Berson four to five more years and he likely move past Yeagley. Or there’s this suggested strategy from Jim Sonefeld: “Win the national championship in one of the next three years and you’ll knock that record out sooner.”

Berson, who’s friends with Yeagley and spoke with him as recently as last week, would like to become the wins king, but “it’s not something that’s in the forefront of your mind, because it’s not something you can control. The only way you get to that point is game by game, by game. You focus on what you need to do.”

What Berson did for Sonefeld in the early 1980s was, as he put it, “started his journey through South Carolina.”

Before Sonefeld became the drummer for Hootie & The Blowfish, he was a college freshman from Naperville, Illinois, trying to make a soccer team. Over 800 miles from home, Sonefeld beat out eight others to become USC’s lone walk-on on the 1983 roster.

Over a decade later, Sonefeld delivered Berson a framed copy of “Cracked Rear View,” Hootie & The Blowfish’s mainstream debut album that remains one of the best-selling albums of all-time. Berson still keeps it in his desk.

“Soccer was the only dream I had then,” said Sonefeld, a midfielder who lettered four times. “There was no music, no academic prowess. I was all about soccer. If I didn’t make the team, there’s no doubt my path would have been altered. And once a path is altered, there’s no telling where it might take you — somewhere else hanging out with a different group of people.”

Sonefeld, a Columbia resident, is now a season-ticket holder at Stone Stadium. The last time he wore a USC uniform, the Gamecocks lost to North Carolina in the second round of the 1987 NCAA Tournament.

“If you ever played on that field, especially for four years, you have a want that continues in you for that team to go all the way,” Sonefeld said. “They’ve been close several years. There’s a lot of heart that goes in you wishing for that team and wishing for him to go all the way one year.”

The biggest loss

Berson has also lost 240 times as a coach. The most significant of those defeats is represented by a black-and-white photo that sits on the floor in one corner of his office.

“It’s interesting to look at the faces in that picture,” Berson said. “We had to call the guys together three or four times to get them to come together for the picture because everyone was so (dejected).”

It’s from Dec. 5, 1993, moments after Virginia beat South Carolina in the national championship game. Doug Allison, USC’s all-time leader in goals who served on Berson’s staff from 1991-94, is among the photo’s blank stares.

“I felt bad,” said Allison, who’s entering his 24th season as Furman’s coach. “He deserved that. He worked so hard.

“Teams just don’t happen. They take a long time to recruit. And we finally got the chemistry right of so many different players. We had a great team, great attitude. It was a team that some people said couldn’t do it, but our belief that year that he instilled in us was amazing. And we were so close to winning a national championship.”

Berson said baseball’s consecutive national titles in 2010-11 “broke the ice” for USC athletics and “really changed the mindset of what the University of South Carolina can do.” The coach of those teams, Ray Tanner, now serves as Berson’s boss.

It only adds to the motivation.

“We had knocked on the door, got to the final, came up a little bit short and we want to get back,” Berson said. “For us, it’s inspiring for us to continue to achieve at a high level of success. I think we’ve been to a lot of NCAA Tournaments and we’ve been pretty far and we just need to keep knocking.

“You get that break, you get that thing to bounce your way and hopefully you can do it.”

Legacy solidified

But what if it doesn’t happen? What defines a legendary career that ends without capturing the ultimate goal?

Berson’s legacy is about as unique as any in college sports. When that ‘78 team helped unload bleachers, they symbolized their coach literally building a program from the ground up. What’s happened since has already been unprecedented.

Take it from Allison, who’s one of several former USC players now running their own college program.

“To do it to the level that he’s done it for so long, it’s amazing,” Allison said. “The amount of time you spend away from your family, it’s a sacrifice. It can be exhausting sometimes.

“But it shows his love of the sport, his love of that university.”

And if Berson should never pass Yeagley?

“We all have goals, and that’s a goal of his,” Allison said, “but the number you have at the end doesn’t matter. It’s the experience he’s given the players, given the assistant coaches and the chances he’s given to people. That’s what he’ll be defined by. And I hope that’s my legacy one day, how I’ve treated people along the way.

“Everyone’s going to end up with a number, but I don’t know exactly what all those numbers mean anymore because there’s too many now. What is important is that you treat people the right way. He certainly did that with me.”

USC’s deepest run in the past decade came in 2010 when it advanced to the Big Dance’s round of 16. Jimmy Maurer, now the starting goalkeeper for FC Dallas of the MLS, earned his final of 28 career shutouts that season. The number stands as second-best in school history.

What stood out to Maurer about Berson then is fitting for how Berson continues to approach his job today. Even-keel keeps you going for four decades.

“His patience, him teaching us to be calm,” Maurer said. “A lot of times, whether we would be getting frustrated or we would want to be pushing for more, he would preach that calmness, to trust in ourselves and our abilities. I think that took us a long way.”

Berson still has wins to generate, people to meet, stories to tell.

“The exciting thing about coaching is it’s always evolving,” Berson said, “it’s always different. So you can take from a guy like Dean Smith or Mike Krzyzewski or Lou Holtz or Steve Spurrier or Dawn Staley or Ray Tanner.

“You can pull different things and you can have different thoughts, but in the end it’s your own personality, it’s your own philosophy.”

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Winningest soccer coaches in NCAA Division I history

1. Jerry Yeagley (Indiana, 1973-03) 544

2. Stephen Negoesco (San Francisco, 1962-00) 540

3. Jack Mackenzie (Quincy 1969-11) 516

4. Mark Berson (The Citadel, 1977; South Carolina, 1978-present) 501

5. Michael Parker (Lock Haven, 1976-83; UNCG 1984-09) 494

This story was originally published August 30, 2018 at 10:10 AM.