‘The news shocked everybody.’ Inside Frank Martin’s final minutes as USC’s coach
The text message made James Reese feel sick.
Sure, in the corner of his mind, he knew it was a possibility. He saw other teams in the league like Georgia, Florida and Missouri dismiss their head coaches shortly after the SEC tournament. But fire Frank Martin? The idea seemed inconceivable.
A lifelong Columbia native and former A.C. Flora standout, Reese always thought Frank Martin was South Carolina men’s basketball. Reese’s dream was to play for Martin’s Gamecocks — a dream he was able to fulfill as a graduate transfer this season. He knew, though, that some corners of the fan base wanted Martin gone. But when Reese and his teammates left Tampa after their one-and-done showing in the SEC tournament late last week, the consensus among players was that Martin’s job was safe.
Throughout the weekend, Reese peered across the street from the on-campus apartment he shares with teammate Erik Stevenson and saw Martin’s car parked at the men’s basketball offices, just like always. He never saw Martin pack boxes or clean out desks — or do anything out of the ordinary. Nothing at all seemed unusual, not even in the hours after the Gamecocks (18-13, 9-9 SEC) were surprisingly denied an NIT bid on Selection Sunday.
Then the text message came. Reese was running errands Monday — at the bank — around 2:10 p.m when he read the text.
“Team meeting at 2:30.”
His mood soured immediately. Martin never called meetings on such short notice, and Reese knew something strange was happening. A sense of unease washed over the Gamecocks as the entire roster — players only — gathered at the basketball facility.
When Martin walked into the meeting room with athletic director Ray Tanner by his side, the players had already figured out what the message was going to be. Reese could see the pain written in Martin’s face.
“You know when you hear something and everybody in the room just kinda looks at each other like, ‘What?’ ” Reese told The State. “Everybody just had that confusion face on.
“Because the team had talked. We were like, ‘Oh, Frank’s good.’ We were thinking he was going to be all right. The news shocked everybody.”
After 10 years at the helm of the South Carolina men’s basketball team, Martin informed his players at that 2:30 p.m. meeting Monday that he would no longer be the program’s head coach. Martin didn’t talk for long, no more than five or 10 minutes, before Tanner addressed the team himself.
Martin told the Gamecocks that he would always be in their corner and that he would always consider them his players. He encouraged them to stay in contact with him and to have their parents call him if they had any questions.
Once Tanner started talking to the team, Martin left the room. Reese, who has no more college eligibility, followed Martin out of the door.
“I ain’t gonna lie: I walked out,” Reese said. “I stood up right behind Frank and walked out behind him. And I was just like, ‘No disrespect, Ray Tanner, but this really don’t have nothing to do with me.’ ”
Reese stood in the hallway and talked with Martin as Tanner addressed the rest of his teammates and fielded their questions. A couple of players asked Tanner who USC is targeting as its next head coach. He didn’t provide specifics.
Before long, USC senior Keyshawn Bryant joined Reese and Martin in the hallway. Just days before, Bryant had said from USC’s hotel lobby in Tampa: “This man has done everything, anything I can ask for. My loyalty is so big to him.”
The news was a crushing blow to much of the team, which thought it had done enough to reverse any ill will created by last year’s 6-15 finish during the COVID-19 pandemic. But another season without postseason play — after last making the NCAA tournament in 2017’s Final Four run — was enough for the USC administration to make a change.
“We got 18 wins with nine new guys,” Reese said. “And I just kind of felt like Frank did a great job with a new team that he had and figured out ways to get some great wins and have a winning season. So that’s what I felt like was just so great about what he did and why it kind of bothers me that he’s not going to be the coach again.
“I’m just kind of sick that it had to end like this.”
A period of uncertainty
At 2:30 p.m. Monday, Martin told the team he had been let go. By 2:38 p.m., the news leaked nationally. An official announcement came from the university 10 minutes later.
Up the road in Fort Mill, the parents of freshman point guard Jacobi Wright first found out their son’s head coach had been fired over Twitter.
“Cobi called us about 30 seconds after,” father Chris Wright told The State. “He just called and told us the news and said all the players were pretty bummed about it. Pretty much all of them didn’t agree with it — from the report I got. So it was tough.
“I just hate it for Frank, man. He’s such a good dude. He poured his heart into these kids. I could just tell that he was heartbroken himself. I can just tell from the interaction that he had with the kids.”
Beyond that initial heartbreak followed a deluge of questions. What now? What’s next?
Outside of Reese and fellow grad transfer A.J. Wilson, every player on USC’s roster has eligibility remaining, and now they each face decisions about their futures. Last offseason, seven players transferred away from USC and six players transferred in. With a coaching change there’s bound to be departures. Players like Bryant, Jermaine Couisnard and Stevenson also have professional options to consider.
For families like the Wrights, who cited Martin’s coaching style and personality as major factors in Jacobi choosing South Carolina, Monday’s news was especially jarring. Jacobi’s mom, Mikisha Wright, said the change is “causing a lot of anxiety and uncertainty” for the family after their son committed to Martin and was only able to play one season for him. The family is still processing everything.
“We just hope that they make a decision fairly quick,” Chris Wright said. “We can’t afford to wait months for them to figure out who the coach is gonna be. Because if you’re going to get into the transfer portal, it’s going to be flooded. It’s gonna be a lot of kids in the transfer portal, so you don’t want to wait so long.
“And then I guess we also have to see where Frank lands, as well. So, I mean, we have a lot to think about.”
Despite his fiery on-court demeanor and tendency to yell, Martin is often lauded by parents and players for the family atmosphere he creates and his level of care for his players. And after the rigors of last year — when Martin contracted COVID-19 twice and mulled retirement — the 55-year-old developed an especially close-knit relationship with this year’s group, saying throughout the year that players like Reese and Stevenson revitalized him.
On Tuesday night, Reese, Stevenson, Couisnard and Bryant all planned to visit Martin at his home and spend time with him.
“I’d love to coach again,” Martin said after USC’s season-ending loss in Tampa. “That’s the thing that hurts the most right now is that these kids, they gave me life when I was dead. And I don’t want to stop. I want to keep coaching them.”
‘The hardest thing’ to do
There was no joy to be had last year. USC’s 2020-21 season was defined by COVID-19 quarantines, canceled games, missing players and losses.
In contrast, this year’s Gamecocks were a fun-loving group that oozed with personality and played with the kind of blue-collar effort that Martin expects. New additions like Reese, Stevenson and freshman Devin Carter added zest and energy to the locker room, and those players spoke often about trying to build South Carolina back into a postseason team.
As older, confident players, Reese and Stevenson were never afraid to interject their opinions in practices and offer suggestions for different plays and tweaks, something that players like Sindarius Thornwell used to do on Martin’s best USC teams. After successful team drills, they’d often start cheering and yelling and incorporate Martin into their celebrations — and he’d smile or pat them on the back.
This year’s players were determined to bring joy back into the program and to help Martin rekindle his love for coaching. And though they fell short of their postseason aspirations, they still delivered their fair share of exhilarating moments. Reese’s half-court overtime buzzer beater at Ole Miss in February is a moment that still feels surreal to him
“After I hit the game winner, I just went up to (Martin) like, ‘Coach, I appreciate you for this opportunity, man,’ ” Reese told The State. “This is the type of stuff I dreamed of.”
Those dreams didn’t include Martin’s dismissal at the end of the season. For Reese, Monday’s 2:30 p.m. meeting was much more like a nightmare. But the reality of the college basketball landscape and the increasingly competitive SEC is that postseason berths matter.
Hired in 2012, Martin, 55, compiled a 171-147 (79-99 SEC) career record over 10 seasons with the Gamecocks. The win total is the third most in program history, and his tenure was highlighted by one NCAA tournament appearance and the program’s only Final Four in 2017.
“Our expectation is to compete for Southeastern Conference and national championships,” Tanner said in the school’s official statement on the matter.
On Monday, South Carolina’s athletic director explained to the team that he thought the decision to part ways with Martin was in the best interests of USC’s program.
Still, that didn’t mean delivering the news was a pleasurable experience.
“It is the hardest thing,” Tanner told The State. “I haven’t had to do it a lot, but I’ve had to do it some now because I’ve been here 10 years. Coach Martin and I specifically have been together for 10 years. It’s been a professional, friendly relationship, and then you part ways. That’s never easy. It certainly wasn’t easy for either one of us.”
As Tanner talked to the Gamecock players Monday, Reese escaped to the hallway to be with the coach who gave him the chance to play for his hometown school. He wanted to make sure Martin understood where his loyalty was and to tell him how much he meant to him.
Minutes after he had said goodbye to his team, Martin offered Reese a final bit of coaching, telling him: “You can only control what you can control. That’s why whenever you’re doing something, make sure you always put your best foot forward, so when the fight ends you’re not left with regrets.”
“And I felt that,” Reese told The State. “I feel Frank has no regrets. Because this year, I felt like he left it all out there. Like he said, he felt the love again.
“He didn’t want it to end, but I just kind of feel like that’s the best way for him to go, with him actually coaching and actually getting us to win and actually have a team that fights for him.”
Reese certainly fought for his coach. He fought until the very end.
This story was originally published March 16, 2022 at 5:00 AM with the headline "‘The news shocked everybody.’ Inside Frank Martin’s final minutes as USC’s coach."
