The South Carolina Gamecocks rallied back from a seven-point halftime deficit on Sunday afternoon to upset Florida, 77-70, and — shockingly — book themselves a place in the Final Four.
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South Carolina coach Frank Martin's wild path to the Final Four began as the coach of a JV basketball team, when the actual coach didn't show up
South Carolina reached its first ever Final Four, and for coach Frank Martin, it's the culmination of a wild journey that began coaching a JV team.
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It's a Cinderella story almost too good to be true: a program hardly known for basketball success, with not a single March Madness appearance in 13 years and no tournament wins in 44, South Carolina now stands just two wins away from a national championship.
For head coach Frank Martin, the miraculous run at this year's Big Dance is the cherry on top of an improbable coaching career that began more than 30 years ago, and only when the JV basketball coach at a high school in Miami failed to show up to work one day.
Two years after taking the JV job at Miami Senior High, his team was 22-0. He moved up to the varsity, and contributed to eight state championships. From there, he took a leap of faith when he accepted the head coaching gig at Northeastern for $28,000, a big pay cut from his job coaching and teaching math in Miami, but an in at the next level.
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As a college basketball coach, Martin has often been compared to Bobby Knight for his unrivaled intensity — a scowl permanently splayed across his face and a drill sergeant's willingness to tear into his players during a timeout.
But that intensity is perhaps the result of the work he put in just to become a basketball coach. Here, from CBS Sports, is a list of some of the other jobs Martin had before that first JV coaching gig:
Martin's tenacity has paid off. At Kansas State he won 117 games and coached a team to the Elite Eight. He took the South Carolina gig in 2012 and now they are in Final Four. And his South Carolina squad, it should be noted, embodies Martin's spirit. They play dizzying defense (the 68.5 points they concede on average is the second best in the country), and get out and run in transition.
The roster may not be filled with blue-chip NBA prospects, but Martin did manage to recruit P.J. Dozier, a McDonald's All-American, to stay in his home state for college and play at South Carolina. Sindarius Thornwell, meanwhile, has arguably been the best player in March Madness.
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Martin's mother, in the stands on Sunday, could hardly believe it, either.
"He made it out," Lordes Martin said. "He had many, many jobs, and then God was up there and blessed him."
"I’m happy as any mom could be," she said. "Speechless, but not all the way. I have to talk to him about my air ticket."
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