How much will former Clemson baseball coach Monte Lee make as USC’s top assistant?
.JPG "Mark Kingston’s South Carolina team will face Monte Lee’s Clemson squad this weekend.")
Former Clemson head baseball coach Monte Lee will make a $240,000 salary as South Carolina’s top assistant coach, The State learned through an open records request.
A full contract for Lee “has not yet been executed,” a USC spokesperson said via email.
The Gamecocks introduced Lee on Aug. 22 as the team’s new associate head coach, recruiting coordinator and hitting coach. Lee replaces one-year USC coach Chad Caillet in that role, who left the team due to personal family reasons.
For the past 14 years, Lee has served as a head coach, starting with a seven-year stint at College of Charleston and another seven-year stint at Clemson. Fired by Clemson in June after the Tigers failed to reach the postseason for the second straight year, Lee will make roughly half the salary he earned as a head coach.
Lee made $500,000 for Clemson last season and was slated to earn the same over the next two seasons before his firing. The 45-year-old South Carolina native said he was mulling an opportunity to work in professional baseball before USC head coach Mark Kingston called him about the USC job.
Lee called the assistant job a “no-brainer,” and he said he had no qualms about serving as an assistant after more than a decade as a head coach.
“If I want the players to believe in something, I have to believe in it, too,” Lee said. “And we’re really big on the players being selfless and putting the program first and dominating their role. I think that’s very, very important. If you want to play at a national championship level, you have to be willing to sacrifice for the program, be selfless and dominate your role.
“And I have no problem whatsoever doing everything that I can to dominate the role that I’m in.”
Part of the attraction for Lee was his affection for the USC program. Before becoming a head coach, Lee served as an assistant on Ray Tanner’s USC staff from 2003-08 and still speaks fondly of Tanner — now USC’s athletic director.
In the past couple of seasons, Kingston has talked about the importance of connecting with Gamecocks of the past. Last year, Kingston added former Gamecock baseball great Scott Wingo to the coaching staff, and the addition of Lee follows that mold.
