Bobby Cremins

Bobby Cremins
Cremins in Kuwait in 2007
Sport(s) Basketball
Current position
Title Head coach
Team College of Charleston
Record 101–55 (.647)
Biographical details
Born July 4, 1947 (1947-07-04) (age 64)
Place of birth The Bronx, New York, USA
Playing career
1967–1970 South Carolina
Position(s) Point guard
Coaching career (HC unless noted)
1972–1973
1973–1975
1975–1981
1981–2000
2006–present		 Point Park
South Carolina (asst.)
Appalachian State
Georgia Tech
College of Charleston
Head coaching record
Overall 541–356 (.603)
Accomplishments and honors
Championships
3 ACC Tournament Championship (1985, 1990, 1993)
2 ACC Regular Season Championship (1985, 1996)
1 Southern Conference Tournament Championship (1979)
4 Southern Conference Regular Season Championship (1978, 1979, 1981, 2011)
Awards
1 Naismith College Coach of the Year (1990)
3 ACC Coach of the Year (1983, 1985, 1996)
4 Southern Conference Coach of the Year (1976, 1978, 1981, 2011)

Bobby Cremins (born July 4, 1947) is an American college basketball coach and the current head coach of the College of Charleston's men's basketball team, and former head coach at Appalachian State and Georgia Tech.

Contents

Early years

Cremins attended the All Hallows High School in the Bronx, New York, where he was born to Irish immigrants. In 1966, he entered the University of South Carolina on a basketball scholarship, where he played under the legendary basketball coach Frank McGuire. While Cremins was there, the South Carolina team won 61 games, with only 17 losses, while Cremins was the starting point guard for three years for the Gamecocks. Cremins, known affectionately as "Cakes", was also the captain of South Carolina's powerful 1969–70 team which went 25-3. He graduated from South Carolina in 1970 with a B.S. degree in marketing, before playing professional basketball for one year in Ecuador.

Early coaching career

Cremins started his coaching career at in 1971 as an assistant coach at Point Park College in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He next returned to South Carolina to become McGuire's assistant coach and to earn a M.S. degree in guidance and counseling in 1972.

At age 27, Cremins became one of the youngest NCAA Division I head coaches in history when he took charge of the Appalachian State University's basketball team. In his first year at Appalachian his team had a record of 13–14, but then they accumulated an 87–56 record over the next five seasons, with three Southern Conference championships. The Mountaineers posted a 23–6 record, and received an NCAA Tournament slot in 1979. Cremins's performance at Appalachian State gathered him some national attention in the NCAA coaching ranks, including catching the eye of the Georgia Tech athletic director. Cremins was hired as the Rambling Wreck's new head basketball coach at the close of the 1981 season, on April 14, 1981.

Georgia Tech

Cremins took over an Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) Georgia Tech team that had been winless in the conference and had compiled a four wins and 23 losses record in the basketball season before his arrival. His team progressed to the ACC Basketball Tournament championship in 1985, and they amassed a record of 27 wins with eight losses. In 1990, Cremins's team progressed all the way to the Final Four in the NCAA Tournament, with an overall 28–7 record.

Cremins was three-times the ACC "Coach of the Year": In 1983 with the first ever Yellow Jackets' ACC tournament victory, and an overall 13–15 won/loss record; again in 1985, and again in 1996 when his team posted a 24–12 record, won the ACC regular-season championship with a 13–3 record, and progressed to the NCAA Basketball Tournament's "Sweet 16". Cremins' coaching of the 1990 Yellow Jackets' team earned him the Naismith College Coach of the Year honor.

Cremins next decided to retire from basketball coaching with an overall 25-year coaching record of 452–303 (60 percent wins), and with a Georgia Tech coaching record, in 19 seasons, of 352–233 (also 60% wins).

Cremins had a host of players that went on to have successful National Basketball Association (NBA) careers. First there was Mark Price (the Cleveland Cavaliers) and John Salley (the Detroit Pistons) in the early 1980s, then Duane Ferrell, Tom Hammonds, Dennis Scott, Brian Oliver, Kenny Anderson, Jon Barry, Travis Best, Stephon Marbury, Jason Collier and Matt Harpring.

Cremins was also an assistant coach on the first-ever gold-medal-winning American World University Games team in 1986, assisting the head coach. Lute Olson of the University of Arizona. Cremins also assisted Olson at the 1986 FIBA World Championship, also winning the gold medal there.[1] During the summer of 1989 he coached the American team that qualified for the World Championships in 1990.

Cremins also assisted the former National Basketball Association coach Lenny Wilkens in the American basketball team's appearance in the Summer Olympic Games of 1996 in Atlanta. This team was the second of the "Dream Teams" in the Olympic Games, and it featured such NBA stars as Charles Barkley, Karl Malone, Reggie Miller, Shaquille O'Neil, Scottie Pippen, David Robinson and John Stockton, several of whom were returning for their second Olympic Games basketball tournament. This "Dream Team" was undefeated in the Olympic basketball tournament, of course, and it defeated the second-place Yugoslavian team 95–69 in the championship game in winning the gold medal.

On March 24, 1993, Cremins agreed to coach basketball at his alma mater, the University of South Carolina, before changing his mind and deciding three days later to continue at Georgia Tech. In 2003, Georgia Tech officially named the basketball court at the Alexander Memorial Coliseum on the Georgia Tech campus, the "Cremins Court". Paul Hewitt would take his place at Georgia Tech in 2000.

College of Charleston

Turning down numerous offers to coach during his retirement, and even an occasional athletic directors job, Cremins toured the country doing motivational speaking, did television commentary on ACC and NCAA basketball, and worked with charities, mainly for Coaches vs. Cancer and the Jimmy V Foundation. Cremins also raised money for a five-to-six week summer program, half of which include disadvantaged children, the Hilton Head Basketball Camp 101.

In 2006, Cremins returned to coaching at the College of Charleston, hoping to restore the basketball program there to the status of a significant team in college basketball that it experienced under coach John Kresse from 1980 to 2002.

Head coaching record

Season Team Overall Conference Standing Postseason
Appalachian State Mountaineers (Southern Conference) (1975–1981)
1975–1976 Appalachian State 13–14 6–6 5th
1976–1977 Appalachian State 17–12 8–4 3rd
1977–1978 Appalachian State 15–13 9–3 1st
1978–1979 Appalachian State 23–6 11–3 1st NCAA 1st Round
1979–1980 Appalachian State 12–16 6–10 T–6th
1980–1981 Appalachian State 20–9 11–5 T–1st
Appalachian State: 100–70 51–31
Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets (Atlantic Coast Conference) (1981–2000)
1981–1982 Georgia Tech 10–16 3–11 8th
1982–1983 Georgia Tech 13–15 4–10 6th
1983–1984 Georgia Tech 18–11 6–8 T–5th NIT 1st Round
1984–1985 Georgia Tech 27–8 9–5 T–1st NCAA Elite Eight
1985–1986 Georgia Tech 27–7 11–3 2nd NCAA Sweet Sixteen
1986–1987 Georgia Tech 16–13 7–7 5th NCAA 1st Round
1987–1988 Georgia Tech 22–10 8–6 4th NCAA 2nd Round
1988–1989 Georgia Tech 20–12 8–6 5th NCAA 1st Round
1989–1990 Georgia Tech 28–7 8–6 T–3rd NCAA Final Four
1990–1991 Georgia Tech 17–13 6–8 T–5th NCAA 2nd Round
1991–1992 Georgia Tech 23–12 8–8 T–4th NCAA Sweet Sixteen
1992–1993 Georgia Tech 19–11 8–8 6th NCAA 1st Round
1993–1994 Georgia Tech 16–13 7–9 6th NIT 1st Round
1994–1995 Georgia Tech 18–12 8–8 5th
1995–1996 Georgia Tech 24–12 13–3 1st NCAA Sweet Sixteen
1996–1997 Georgia Tech 9–18 3–13 9th
1997–1998 Georgia Tech 19–14 6–10 6th NIT Quarterfinals
1998–1999 Georgia Tech 15–16 6–10 T–5th NIT 1st Round
1999–2000 Georgia Tech 13–17 5–11 8th
Georgia Tech: 354–237 134–150
College of Charleston Cougars (Southern Conference) (2006–present)
2006–2007 College of Charleston 22–11 13–5 2nd (South)
2007–2008 College of Charleston 16–17 9–11 3rd (South)
2008–2009 College of Charleston 27–9 15–5 3rd (South) CBI 2nd Round
2009–2010 College of Charleston 22–12 14–4 2nd (South) CBI 2nd Round
2010–2011 College of Charleston 26–10 14–4 1st (South) NIT Quarterfinals
College of Charleston: 109–56 65–27
Total: 563–363

      National champion         Conference regular season champion         Conference tournament champion
      Conference regular season & conference tournament champion       Conference division champion

Personal life

With his wife Carolyn, Cremins has two children, Bobby III and Angela, and two step-daughters, Liz and Suzie, from Carolyn's earlier marriage. He lives in Charleston, South Carolina.

References

  1. ^ 1986 USA Basketball

External links

Current men's basketball head coaches of the Southern Conference
North Division
South Division