How (and why) South Carolina landed in Metro Conference in 1980s
Excerpted, with permission, from “A Gamecock Odyssey: University of South Carolina Sports in the Independent Era,” by Alan Piercy. Copyright University of South Carolina. The book is available for purchase directly from University of South Carolina Press, independent retail outlets like All Good Books, and Amazon.
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In fits and starts throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, the University of South Carolina looked toward a return to conference affiliation, preferably a return to the ACC or, perhaps less likely, an opening in the SEC. Given its history as a founding member of the ACC and the geographical proximity to member institutions in both conferences, those two options made sense on paper, and certainly from an aspirational standpoint.
When Georgia Tech accepted an invitation to membership in the ACC in 1978, however, the door effectively closed on South Carolina’s chances of a return the conference it helped found. The SEC, meanwhile, was content and stable with 10 members. A withdrawal of any school from ether conference seemed highly unlikely.
Yet, the University of South Carolina increasingly found its major independent status a hindrance in all sports other than football. Men’s basketball particularly suffered from decreased fan interest and attendance. Dwindling prospects for NCAA tournament invitations in the wake of a 1974 decision to begin inviting two teams per conference rather than just conference winners reduced the at-large bid possibilities for independent teams.
This in turn led to the hasty formation of several makeshift conferences that cobbled together independent programs with an eye toward achieving automatic bids and possibly a second-place at-large bid for members.
In the early 1970s, St. Louis University athletics director Larry Albus envisioned the formation of a new basketball-focused conference whose membership would comprise schools from large metropolitan cities across the upper South. By June 1975, Albus’ vision had become a reality with the formation of the Metropolitan Athletic Conference. Founding members included Cincinnati, Louisville, Memphis State, St. Louis and former SEC members Tulane and Georgia Tech. The fledgling conference was known less formally as the “Metro Six.”
Florida State joined the Metro in 1976, and when Georgia Tech left for the ACC two years later, the Metro promptly added Virginia Tech. Founding member St. Louis withdrew its membership in 1982, but the league returned to seven members once more with the addition of Southern Mississippi later that year. As the geographical footprint of the conference expanded, the movement of member institutions foreshadowed a more widespread fluctuation in conference affiliation in the decades to come.
The Metro had targeted South Carolina almost from the outset in 1975. Just four years removed from ACC membership, South Carolina still enjoyed a nationally ranked basketball program, and Columbia fit the profile of other Metro Conference cities.
Albus pursued Carolina through informal channels, primarily via communications with men’s basketball coach Frank McGuire’s top assistant, Donnie Walsh. Walsh then wrote to then USC President William Patterson, who in turn presented the Metro’s interest to the university board of trustees.
With the door to ACC membership closed by 1978, McGuire openly lobbied for USC to accept a membership invitation to the Metro. His desire for membership was pragmatic. With more attractive options momentarily out of reach, the Metro would provide the opportunity to shore up a basketball program that by then was struggling with fewer wins, reduced fan interest and lower attendance.
“I don’t say that games with Metro teams will be as exciting to our fans in the beginning as games with North Carolina, Duke or N.C. State,” McGuire told reporters. “But I believe that we could cultivate good rivalries with some of the outstanding Metro teams over a period of years.”
USC’s board of trustees and its new president, Jim Holderman, demurred, preferring instead to wait for membership in an all-sports conference. By 1983, however, options for membership in an all-sports conference were still lacking, while the viability of major independent status became increasingly untenable.
When Bill Foster left Duke to replace Frank McGuire as head basketball coach for the 1980-81 season, he brought with him a reputation as a builder of programs. After a surprising 17-10 finish, most prognosticators predicted that Foster’s young squad, which boasted the nation’s leading scorer in McGuire-era holdover Zam Fredrick, would receive a bid to the National Invitational Tournament (NIT). USC was on the outside looking in when invitations went out, however, passed over by numerous conference-affiliated teams with the same or worse records.
By Foster’s third season, 1982-83, the Gamecocks charged to a 20-8 regular season finish, and most thought Carolina had done enough to position itself for an NCAA tournament bid. Despite a solid resume’, USC once again found itself left out, and settled instead for a NIT bid. The disadvantage of South Carolina’s independent status became even more pronounced over the coming weeks.
North Carolina State, the eventual winner of that season’s national championship, had ended their regular season 17-10, but achieved an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament after an improbable run and championship in the ACC tournament. The Wolfpack entered NCAA play with an identical win total to South Carolina’s regular season 20 wins.
Another factor had entered the equation by the early 1980s — television contracts. The ACC had just inked a lucrative new contract with Raycom Sports, guaranteeing each of its members $1.6 million in television revenue from basketball during the 1982-83 season. Other conferences were negotiating similar deals. There was no such opportunity for major independent schools.
New athletics director Bob Marcum moved decisively to guide Carolina toward the Metro in the days following the basketball team’s NCAA tournament snub. Within two weeks, the USC board of trustees accepted an invitation from the Metro Conference, becoming the conference’s eighth member.
Within a fifteen-month span, the University of South Carolina had taken major steps toward putting it athletic affairs in order by hiring a strong athletics director to unify the department, and securing conference membership within the Metro.
While producing mixed results in the win-loss column over the next seven years, these events cumulatively provided the cohesion the athletics department and university sorely needed. Moreover, they set USC along the path toward bigger and better things to come.
