The case for Monte Lee — and a USC baseball coaching staff inspired by Ray Tanner era

Ray Tanner will soon hire his third head baseball coach at South Carolina since he transitioned from a Gamecock uniform to a suit as the school’s athletics director in 2012. Twelve years have passed since then, with Chad Holbrook holding the job for five years and Mark Kingston seven.

Those were short runs when compared with their two predecessors. June Raines held the position for 20 seasons and Tanner 16. Those two, along with Bobby Richardson (seven years), established the South Carolina name among the greats in college baseball.

Tanner has no one to blame but himself for his current predicament. By winning two national titles and playing for two more, and making six trips to the College World Series, he set the bar for his coaches at a John Wooden-like level. Who could possibly match that?

Holbrook was the obvious replacement for Tanner when he retired. He had been hired away from North Carolina after the 2008 season as associate head coach and was instrumental during the Gamecocks’ three-year CWS run from 2010-12.

It wasn’t as though Holbrook was terrible as the USC head man. Quite the contrary. His teams won over 40 games three times and went to three regionals and two supers. Holbrook’s teams won 65% of their games and 55% of their SEC contests. But he never took a team to the CWS. Not good enough. He was let go after his team failed to make the NCAA Tournament in 2017.

Kingston is that rare head coach who was fired even though his team made the NCAA Tournament. This year’s team won 37 games, matching the second-highest win total of the Kingston era, but was only 13-17 in SEC play. The Gamecocks did play one of the nation’s toughest schedules and showed their mettle by going 3-2 in the SEC Tournament with wins over Alabama, Arkansas and Kentucky, and two one-run losses to LSU.

In his six full seasons of play, Kingston guided the Gamecocks to four regionals and two super regionals. But he never took a team to the CWS. Not good enough.

So, when Tanner looks in the mirror, he sees the reason for the problem. It’s him. It’s his legacy and his 70% winning percentage. It’s his three SEC Championships and six SEC Eastern Division titles. It’s his 14 NCAA Tournament appearances and 10 Super Regionals. It’s his NCAA records of 22 consecutive postseason wins and 12 consecutive CWS victories. It’s his two national players of the year (Kip Bouknight and Michael Roth) and his two SEC Players of the Year (Bouknight and Yaron Peters).

All of this is Tanner’s fault. Now, how does he fix it?

Monte Lee ... and more from USC’s past

Tanner tried the inside move with Holbrook and that didn’t pan out well enough. He then went outside the Gamecock baseball family with Kingston, and that ended poorly.

John Whittle of TheBigSpur reported Tanner is focused on East Carolina coach Cliff Godwin but may not be able to pry him away. There are a myriad of coaches out there like him who Tanner can pursue. Chris Pollard of Duke. Tom Walter of Wake Forest. Dan McDonnell of Louisville. Guys who have done great jobs at places where baseball is not held in as high regard as in Columbia.

A possible solution to Tanner’s problem today is sitting in an office at Founders Park: interim head coach Monte Lee. The one-time Gamecock assistant under Tanner has as impressive a head coaching resume as many of the other names being tossed about. In 14 seasons as head coach at the College of Charleston and Clemson, Lee won 65% of his games (518-281). He won a championship in three different conferences. He took each program to four regionals and made a Super Regional with the Cougars.

No, it did not end well for him at Clemson, missing the postseason each of his final two seasons. And no, he never got a team to the CWS.

But Lee was one of Tanner’s trusted lieutenants in his six seasons as an assistant, and Tanner no doubt had something to do with Kingston hiring him as associate head coach prior to the 2023 season. What does that say about how Tanner feels toward Lee?

Tanner only has a few years left as the AD at South Carolina, so why not piece the band back together? Make Lee the head coach and bring back folks like former top assistant and recruiting coordinator Jim Toman, and former All-American catcher Landon Powell, now the head coach at North Greenville.

Hiring Lee would be nostalgic to some degree for Tanner, but it also would be smart. Players and recruits have come out publicly in support of him. Lee, at Tanner’s direction, has handled the team since Monday and kept top USC players out of the transfer portal while also recruiting others from the portal.

The transition would be smooth, and Tanner could walk away knowing the program is in the hands of folks who helped him build it into the monster it has become.