Ray Tanner’s legacy will live on at South Carolina, where he built champions — as a coach
Lee Corso is almost 90 years old. Most of his life has put him in the spotlight on ESPN’s “College GameDay” show. From the headgear picks to his occasional profanity, Corso has transcended himself into a college football icon.
And hardly anyone calls him Lee. He is “Coach” or “Coach Corso.” It almost doesn’t matter that he, in fact, has not been a coach in 40 years. We still call him “Coach” the same way we call Bill Clinton or George Bush “Mr. President.” Perhaps certain jobs affords the right of passage of a lifetime title, or maybe certain authority figures command eternal respect.
Which brings us to Thursday, when a man who has not led a team in over a dozen years was introduced as “Coach.”
Ray Tanner has been working at the University of South Carolina since 1997. Before taking over as athletic director in 2013, he was USC’s baseball coach for 16 years — and he turned a successful program into a semi-dynasty.
A 738-316 (.700) winning percentage. Thirteen trips to the NCAA Tournament. Six appearances in the College World Series. National championships in 2010 and 2011. Before Dawn Staley took the women’s basketball program to unfathomable heights, Tanner’s teams were the first to bring real winning to Columbia.
On Thursday, Tanner was asked when he pictures his time at South Carolina, is he in the dugout or sitting down in the AD office office at the Rice Athletics Center? He chuckled.
“I’d probably say the dugout,” Tanner said. “For sure.”
Plenty of Gamecock fans would agree. It is why a dedication to honor Tanner — who stepped down as athletic director in December but stayed at the school as a special advisor to the president — is taking place at Founders Park and not some administrative building.
In what has been a long time coming, Ray Tanner Field will be christened Saturday with dozens of Tanner’s former players and coaches in attendance.
“When I saw the first stencil of the name on the field,” Tanner said, “it was like, ‘This is a representation of what’s happened here for Carolina baseball.’ ”
“I think Ray’s worst quality is he’s overly humble,” USC baseball coach Paul Mainieri said with Tanner looking on. “He never wants to take credit for anything. … (The field dedication) is long overdue.”
It’s not just that South Carolina is slapping Tanner’s name on something. The university is enshrining his name at the place he built.
OK, Tanner did not physically build Founders Park, but he did everything short of measuring plywood and pouring concrete. To look around the ballpark today is to see Tanner’s brainchild.
Why is there a long walkway across right field? Because Tanner loved Camden Yards in Baltimore and wanted to replicate its great right-field hangout spot. Why are there bleachers right along the wall in left field? Because Tanner took inspiration from the previous home of the College World Series, Rosenblatt Stadium. Why can you walk all the way around the concourse? Because you couldn’t at Arkansas’ stadium and Tanner hated that.
Why are the concourses so wide? Tanner.
Why is there a great plaza behind the batter’s eye? Tanner.
Why can fans see action from almost every spot in the concourse? Tanner.
Why are there so many chair-back seats? Tanner.
Why does the team have a tunnel leading from the locker room to the dugout? Tanner.
Tanner admitted he personally went to Sarge Frye Field — USC baseball’s prior home — and measured the distance between the first- and third-base bags to the nearest seats so it would be exactly the same for his new stadium.
“Because I wanted our fan base to be exactly where they were,” Tanner said.
Over the past 28 years at South Carolina, which included two national championships as a coach and more as a AD, Tanner said constructing what became Founders Park was the most fun he’s had.
“Building this stadium was an absolute rush,” Tanner said. “I was here almost every morning with a hard hat and a Gator.”
Perhaps it’s no surprise his baseball teams did the same thing. In a game where winning is fickle and major success feels — even if it’s slight — guided by luck or good fortune, Tanner’s teams kept showing up.
Any early disappointments are overshadowed by the two national championship trophies in the center-field plaza.
With a College World Series berth on the line, USC lost a winner-take-all super regional game 3-2 in 2000. It encountered the same fate in 2001 by the exact same score.
“I never talked about winning the conference, winning the tournament,” Tanner said. “I always talked about being in a position. If you’re in good position, good things can happen. Well, we were in good position and it didn’t happen.”
A year later, the Gamecocks were again in a super regional rubber match down three runs in the ninth inning. Tanner was in the dugout at Sarge Frye thinking, “Well, at least we’re not gonna lose 3-2 today.” And then came the tipping point. A five-run ninth inning to win, to send Tanner to his first College World Series and the Gamecocks to Omaha for the first time in 17 years.
“We kicked the door in,” Tanner said.
Winning takes some divine intervention. It takes a miraculous ninth-inning rally. It requires a reliever named Michael Roth getting a starting nod in Omaha and firing a complete game. It takes someone leaving a breaking ball over the plate to Christian Walker.
To put oneself in “good position” requires no luck. That is the hard part, where all the work and consistency and early mornings really show.
Perhaps the same is true of being an athletic director, though successes are not as black and white. No one gives out trophies for balancing the budget. But, with Tanner leading the department from 2013 to 2024, the women’s basketball team won three titles. And though he didn’t hire Staley, Tanner kept her at USC, which is a win in itself.
But he’s also hired two baseball coaches — Chad Holbrook and Mark Kingston — who could not replicate his success on the diamond. The men’s basketball program made the NCAA Tournament twice over those 12 years — granted, one was a trip to the Final Four.
Tanner hired football coach Will Muschamp on the heels of the momentum the Gamecocks had built in the front half of the 2010s. Muschamp, who had flamed out at Florida years prior, won less than half his games at USC and was fired in 2020.
Tanner also hired Shane Beamer, which might end up as his Muschamp redemption. Beamer, who regularly refers to his boss as “Coach Tanner,” just wrapped up a 9-4 season and seems to have the Gamecocks in prime position to keep contending in the SEC.
Was his tenure as athletic director a success? You be the judge, but it certainly wasn’t a failure.
And, yet, whatever you deem it, it isn’t likely to be what Coach Tanner is remembered for.
This story was originally published February 14, 2025 at 7:00 AM.
