Former Gamecock lands first coaching job after graduation
Former South Carolina men’s basketball player and graduate assistant TeMarcus Blanton stepped into the job market in a tricky time with the coronavirus pandemic.
Now he’s landed his first coaching position in the basketball world.
Blanton tweeted Monday he will be an assistant coach at Lovejoy High School in Hampton, Georgia. It’s not far from his hometown of Locust Grove.
Blanton will work for longtime Lovejoy coach Kyle Herrema.
He spent the past two years earning his Master’s Degree as a graduate assistant for Frank Martin. Speaking to The State in the weeks after the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the sport, he thanked Martin for his influence across more than half a decade and going into his job search.
“Frank knows a lot of people,” Blanton said. “The rest of the staff knows a lot of people, so to have him on my side it’s a huge advantage for me. Their voices alone just stand out by (themselves) and it’s just such a huge influence in his world and in the basketball world.”
Blanton joined coach Frank Martin’s program as a four-star recruit at shooting guard, the top-rated player in his class. But a devastating hip injury, comparable to the one that ended Bo Jackson’s career, before his freshman season lingered through the next few years. Blanton battled back to play 5.9 minutes a game in 2016-17, playing a role on the program’s first Final Four team.
After that, he gave up playing. But he didn’t leave South Carolina.
He stayed on helping out where he could, still a part of the team. After getting his degree in 2018, he became a student assistant coach as he worked toward his graduate degree.
He said in March he was considering getting either into coaching or player development.
