Former Gamecocks make it clear: Frank Martin should remain coach at South Carolina
A devastating hip injury threatened to derail TeMarcus Blanton before he ever played a game for South Carolina. Years later, what the former Gamecock remembers most about his USC career is how Frank Martin lifted him up.
Martin, Blanton said, has a penchant for creating “something out of nothing.”
Because of the injury, Blanton played limited minutes for the Gamecocks, retiring from basketball after the program’s first-ever Final Four run in 2017. But the end of his playing career didn’t mean the end of his contributions as a Gamecock. Martin allowed Blanton to stay on as a student assistant, allowing Blanton to work toward his master’s degree. He is now an assistant basketball coach at Lovejoy High School in Georgia.
Blanton calls Martin one of the most influential people in his life. That’s why it’s upsetting to him to see rumors swirling that South Carolina could fire its nine-year head coach.
“I have been seeing the rumors, and I think that’s a bad move if they let him go,” Blanton told The State. “For him to come in from (Kansas) State and have the single-most wins in one season. And then to carry us to the Final Four, it really changed the whole game in that aspect from the outside-looking-in on the basketball team. You can’t let credentials like that go.
“He built the program when it was nothing — from the ground, where there was no grass, to the sky, where there was a whole bunch of clouds — and he built it all the way from there, and I just think it’s a bad move from the rumors I’ve been seeing on Twitter.”
Blanton wasn’t the only one throwing support behind his former head coach, as multiple former players took to Twitter on Monday. P.J. Dozier, Sindarius Thornwell, Chris Silva and Justin McKie, all members of the Gamecocks’ 2017 Final Four team, voiced their support in a series of messages throughout the day.
Martin’s future at South Carolina is unclear after the Gamecocks went 6-15 (4-12 SEC) this season. He is expected to meet with USC athletic director Ray Tanner as soon as Monday to discuss whether he will be back for a 10th season. A report by SportsTalkSC, referencing anonymous sources, said that Martin “will be presented with multiple options from the University, none of which includes remaining as the head coach.”
In a text message to The State, Martin declined to discuss the report, which he called “gossip.” Before last week’s SEC tournament, Martin addressed the rumors about his job status, saying South Carolina is “where I want to call home.”
On Monday, several of Martin’s former players praised the coach for the way he handled a season that included three separate COVID-19 shutdowns, the loss of big man Alanzo Frink for the season and two positive COVID-19 cases for Martin himself.
“U cant name me another coach that battled the things Frank battled this year and still manage to be there fully invested,” Thornwell tweeted around midday.
Dozier, who now plays for the Denver Nuggets in the NBA, posted a series of tweets:
“So grateful to have played for a coach like Frank Martin. He develops pro on and off the court. I give him a tremendous amount of credit for me being where I am today!”
“Not a fan of these rumors I’m hearing about the future of our Mens basketball program at USC. I am eager to see where the loyalty lies”
“We all know how loyal coach Frank is. And he will never say it but let us not forget how he stuck with the vision and turned the program around when he could have went elsewhere”
Later in the afternoon, McKie joined the chorus of support, tweeting: “Letting go of Frank is the wrong thing to do. He’s taken the program to places we have never been. The fact that he gave it his all despite what he dealt with throughout the season speaks volumes! Give him a full season and watch what he does next year!”
An unusual basketball season
South Carolina has not been in the NCAA tournament since the Final Four season. The Gamecocks were on the bubble last year and were likely headed to the NIT when COVID-19 cut last season short, although they had a chance to improve their standing in the SEC tournament.
Martin, 54, has two years remaining on his contract, making around $3 million per year. The university would owe him a $6.5 million buyout should it decide to fire him. The head coach has defended his program throughout the season, saying repeatedly that college basketball teams have been trying to play a normal season in “an abnormal year.”
Martin points to the seasons before this one, where the Gamecocks finished .500 or better for six straight seasons — the longest streak since the team was coached by Frank McGuire in the 1970s. Martin also emphasized that, in the five seasons prior to this year, the Gamecocks won the third-most SEC games (51) in the conference, behind only Kentucky and Florida.
McKie, an Irmo native whose father, B.J. McKie, still ranks as South Carolina’s all-time leading scorer, told The State he thinks fans are “jumping the gun” in talking about firing Martin.
“You’re talking about a guy who’s battled COVID twice, who has had to try — forget winning basketball games — he’s had to try and keep his players sane with all the stoppages and things like that, and I think he’s done a good job at that,” McKie said.
“Frank wins basketball games. People keep trying to act like we aren’t winning. Frank wins basketball games. Now, are we making the NCAA tournament every year? No ... but I’ve been alive for 25 years, and we’ve been to the NCAA tournament four times in those 25 years. Two with my dad. Once during coach (Dave) Odom’s era. And then once while while I was there, so I can see if we were a program that’s in the NCAA tournament every year and now all of a sudden we aren’t. That’s not the case. And don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that’s not what we should strive for, but I thoroughly believe ... Frank is the person to lead the program. I think if they give him the opportunity next season, Frank will produce. I really do. There’s no doubt in my mind about that.”
Blanton told The State he doesn’t think it’s fair to judge Martin on this season, given what the team went through with the pandemic and the fact that Martin dealt with the virus twice, losing his hair in the process.
“Playing with this COVID going on is really taking a chance because so many people are dying from it,” Blanton said. “For you to take a risk, and he got his own family that he has to worry about, for you to take a risk to play with the virus that’s killing people, for you to still stay committed to a team and show that loyalty and that fight every day at practice and then the games, that tells you right there how high of a person Frank is.”
Throughout the season, Martin talked often about the mental and physical challenges for players during the pandemic, hinting at players losing loved ones and dealing with deeper challenges beyond just suspended games and practices. He said frequently that keeping players “at peace” was his top priority over winning and losing, and reiterated that point in the SEC tournament, where he sat veterans Keyshawn Bryant and Jermaine Couisnard in part due to mental health.
“At the end of the day I’m not going to put winning a game over young people’s mental health, young people’s physical health,” Martin said after the game.
Martin’s former players made special mention of Martin’s impact away from the court. Silva told a story on Twitter about how Martin responded during the historic flood that struck Columbia in 2015:
“Reminiscing about couple years ago at the @UofSC. I was a freshman I think and there was a scary storm that was going for couple days, we was having a power outage now and then and the rain would not stop. We was running out of food and water supplies as the stores were closed.”
My guys left their homes and families to drive in the storm to bring us water and food. That was one of the days I was proud to have made the choice to come play at @UofSC and to follow the lead of @FrankMartin_SC and his staff to fulfill my dream. #bringthebacon #241Represente
Blanton said the lessons he learned from playing and coaching under Martin have set the foundation for his own coaching career, which has only just begun.
“I’m glad he did coach me,” Blanton said. “With the way he coaches, you just earn so much respect. So for me to take away what I learned from him, just being disciplined, being on top of everything and caring for the kids and making sure that the kids see it, it helped me out this year for my team, to be able to hold them accountable so they grow into successful grown men.
“Because really, you can coach, but it’s more about the feeling and the relationship that you made that actually makes you really want to be a coach. And that’s what Frank Martin taught me.”
— The State’s Lou Bezjak contributed
This story was originally published March 15, 2021 at 5:58 PM.