Wednesday, I sent an e-mail to Mel that we (College of Charleston) landed Gregg Marshall as our new basketball coach. Mel’s response was “Sweet! For the next 24 hours, we would have visions of Tournament dancing, season tickets and how many Cougar Club points we would need to accumulate to get great seats at the new Kresse Arena. Former CofC Coach John Kresse announced he planned on getting his old seats back behind the bench. And we were not the only Maroons riding the wave of hope because as of 2:00 pm yesterday, a giant sigh, was heard across the peninsula as every CofC fan and alum heard the news that Coach Marshall, our hope to return the school to greatness, was headed back to Winthrop. Every one of you probably had the same response that I did; I started with quit joshing me, where did you hear that? Followed by, you are crazy; I just got the e-mail from the Alumni group this morning confirming the announcement. And then the inevitable printed work in the Post & Courier confirmed our disappointment.
There is a lot of speculation about why Marshall left, was it Sapakoff's time-lined article about the "backdoor" recruitment of Marshall, Lynne Marshall's over-exuberance at Winthrop games, a family decision, Winthrop offered more money or something else? Sapakoff's article this morning, "Marshall adds to the mess he discovered", threw a lot of jabs at Coach Marshall, but the one thing Sapakoff missed can be summed up with two words-Jerry Baker. CofC A.D. Jerry Baker was on vacation when the committee wined, dined and then spit in their palms before shaking hands with Marshall. Chucktown Sports Muckraker, Sapakoff was correct about one thing, this was a highly unusual hire, and now that the smoke has settled we see why. It is well known that Marshall and Jerry Baker have bad-blood going back over a decade, and that Baker has snubbed his nose at Coach Marshall more than once. I am sure Baker hit the roof when he came home from his cruise and found out a "collegiate-coup" hired his (least) favorite person behind his back. How much pull does Baker have in Randolph Hall? Evidently enough to get Gregg Marshall to pull a U-turn and head back to Rock Hill.
The Post & Courier is forecasting either Buzzy or Bobby Cremins to be tapped as CofC's 21st coach. The Bushido believes Cremins would be the best selection because 1) (as Mr. Glass said) we do have a PR nightmare to clean up, 2) we do need a coach with national name recognition to keep the 4 returning varsity players and recruit new players, 3) Cremins would be a nice transition to build the program for the next 6 years. That being said, the first thing the gang down on George Street needs to do is axe Baker and put Kresse in as athletic director.
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