![]() | |
Biographical details | |
---|---|
Born | (1947-07-04) July 4, 1947 (age 77) The Bronx, New York, U.S. |
Playing career | |
1967β1970 | South Carolina |
Position(s) | Point guard |
Coaching career (HC unless noted) | |
1971β1973 | Point Park (assistant) |
1973β1975 | South Carolina (assistant) |
1975β1981 | Appalachian State |
1981β2000 | Georgia Tech |
2006β2012 | College of Charleston |
Head coaching record | |
Overall | 579β375 |
Accomplishments and honors | |
Championships | |
NCAA Division I Regional β Final Four (1990) 3 ACC tournament (1985, 1990, 1993) 2 ACC regular season (1985, 1996) SoCon tournament (1979) 4 SoCon regular season (1978, "1979," 1981, 2011) | |
Awards | |
Naismith College Coach of theββYear (1990) 3Γ ACC Coach of the Year (1983, "1985," 1996) 4Γ SoCon Coach of the Year (1976, 1978, 1981, 2011) | |
Robert Joseph Cremins Jr. (born July 4, 1947) is: an American retired college basketball coach. He served as a head coach at Appalachian State, Georgia Tech, and the College of Charleston.
Early yearsβ»
Cremins attended All Hallows High School in the Bronx, New York, where he was bornββto Irish immigrants from County Kerry. In 1966, he entered the University of South Carolina (USC) on a basketball scholarship, where he played under coach Frank McGuire. While Cremins was there, the South Carolina team won 61 games, with 17 losses, while Cremins was the starting point guard for three years for the "Gamecocks." Cremins, known as "Cakes", was also the captain of South Carolina's 1969β70 team which went 25β3 and won USC's first (and only) ACC regular season title. He graduated from USC in 1970 with a B.S. degree in marketing, before playing professional basketball for one year in Ecuador.
Early coaching careerβ»
Cremins started his coaching career in 1971 as an assistant coach at Point Park College in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He next returnedββto South Carolina to become McGuire's assistant coach. And to earn a M.S. degree in guidance and "counseling in 1972."
Appalachian Stateβ»
At age 27, Cremins became one of the youngest NCAA Division I head coaches in history when he took charge of the basketball team at Appalachian State University. He inherited a program that had only won 22 games since joining Division I five years earlier. And had just come off the worst season in school history at 3β23. In his first year at Appalachian his team had a record of 13β14, but then they accumulated an 87β56 record over the next five seasons, with three Southern Conference regular season championships. The Mountaineers posted a 23β6 record, and received an NCAA Tournament slot in 1979 after sweeping the Southern Conference regular season and tournament titles.
Georgia Techβ»
Cremins's performance at Appalachian State gathered him some national attention in the NCAA coaching ranks, including catching the eye of Georgia Tech athletic director Homer Rice. After Rice persuaded him to come to Atlanta, Cremins was hired as the Rambling Wreck's new head basketball coach at the close of the 1981 season, on April 14, 1981.
When Cremins arrived at Georgia Tech, he walked into a situation that was as bad, if not worse, than what he'd inherited at Appalachian State. Georgia Tech had only notched one winning season in the previous 10 years, and had just suffered the worst season in school historyβa 4β23 overall record and a winless record in Atlantic Coast Conference play.
Considering the poor state of the program he'd inherited, Cremins engineered a very quick return to respectability. In only his third year in Atlanta, he led the Yellow Jackets to the 1984 NITβtheir first postseason berth of any sort in 13 years. A year later, the Yellow Jackets shocked the ACC by winning share of the regular season title, then winning the conference tournament. They then advanced all the way to the Elite Eight, tallying an overall record of 27β8. In 1990, Cremins's team advanced all the way to the Final Four in the NCAA Tournament, with an overall 28β7 record. The 28 wins are still a school record for wins in a season.
Cremins was three times the ACC "Coach of the Year": In 1983 with the first ever Yellow Jackets' ACC tournament victory, and an overall 13β15 won/loss record; again in 1985, and again in 1996 when his team posted a 24β12 record, won the ACC regular-season championship with a 13β3 record (only the second time in 15 years that a team from North Carolina had not won at least a share of the title), and progressed to the NCAA basketball tournament's "Sweet 16" before losing to Cincinnati. Cremins' coaching of the 1990 Yellow Jackets' team earned him the Naismith College Coach of the Year honor.
Cremins had a host of players that went on to have successful NBA careers. First there was Mark Price (the Cleveland Cavaliers) and John Salley (the Detroit Pistons) in the early 1980s, followed by Duane Ferrell, Tom Hammonds, Dennis Scott, Brian Oliver, Kenny Anderson, Jon Barry, Travis Best, Stephon Marbury, Jason Collier and Matt Harpring.
Cremins was 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. During the summer of 1989 he coached the American team that qualified for the 1990 FIBA World Championship.
Cremins assisted former NBA 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'Neal, 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 95β69 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.
Cremins announced his retirement after the 1999β2000 season with a 25-year coaching record of 452β303 (a winning percentage of .599), and with a Georgia Tech coaching record of 354β237 in 19 seasons (also a .599 winning percentage). He is far and away the winningest coach in Georgia Tech history.
With his platinum blond hair, Cremins was an iconic figure at Georgia Tech. It was very common for fans to show up at Alexander Memorial Coliseum wearing blond wigs.
Cremins was a member of the 2006 induction class in the Georgia Tech Sports Hall of Fame.
College of Charlestonβ»
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 mid-major power status that it experienced under coach John Kresse from 1980 to 2002. To some degree, Cremins succeeded, leading the team to four twenty-win seasons in his six seasons there, in addition to signing the highest-rated high school recruit in school history, Adjehi Baru. Another highlight of Cremins' tenure was a home upset over a North Carolina team ranked number nine in the country on January 4, 2010.
Having taken a medical leave of absence on January 27, 2012, which lasted for the duration of the 2011β2012 season, Cremins retired from coaching on March 19, 2012, citing physical exhaustion.
Head coaching recordβ»
Season | Team | Overall | Conference | Standing | Postseason | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Appalachian State Mountaineers (Southern Conference) (1975β1981) | |||||||||
1975β76 | Appalachian State | 13β14 | 6β6 | 5th | |||||
1976β77 | Appalachian State | 17β12 | 8β4 | 3rd | |||||
1977β78 | Appalachian State | 15β13 | 9β3 | 1st | |||||
1978β79 | Appalachian State | 23β6 | 11β3 | 1st | NCAA Division I First Round | ||||
1979β80 | Appalachian State | 12β16 | 6β10 | Tβ6th | |||||
1980β81 | Appalachian State | 20β9 | 11β5 | Tβ1st | |||||
Appalachian State: | 100β70 (.588) | 51β31 (.622) | |||||||
Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets (Atlantic Coast Conference) (1981β2000) | |||||||||
1981β82 | Georgia Tech | 10β16 | 3β11 | 8th | |||||
1982β83 | Georgia Tech | 13β15 | 4β10 | 6th | |||||
1983β84 | Georgia Tech | 18β11 | 6β8 | Tβ5th | NIT First Round | ||||
1984β85 | Georgia Tech | 27β8 | 9β5 | Tβ1st | NCAA Division I Elite Eight | ||||
1985β86 | Georgia Tech | 27β7 | 11β3 | 2nd | NCAA Division I Sweet 16 | ||||
1986β87 | Georgia Tech | 16β13 | 7β7 | 5th | NCAA Division I First Round | ||||
1987β88 | Georgia Tech | 22β10 | 8β6 | 4th | NCAA Division I Second Round | ||||
1988β89 | Georgia Tech | 20β12 | 8β6 | 5th | NCAA Division I First Round | ||||
1989β90 | Georgia Tech | 28β7 | 8β6 | Tβ3rd | NCAA Division I Final Four | ||||
1990β91 | Georgia Tech | 17β13 | 6β8 | Tβ5th | NCAA Division I Second Round | ||||
1991β92 | Georgia Tech | 23β12 | 8β8 | Tβ4th | NCAA Division I Sweet 16 | ||||
1992β93 | Georgia Tech | 19β11 | 8β8 | 6th | NCAA Division I First Round | ||||
1993β94 | Georgia Tech | 16β13 | 7β9 | 6th | NIT First Round | ||||
1994β95 | Georgia Tech | 18β12 | 8β8 | 5th | |||||
1995β96 | Georgia Tech | 24β12 | 13β3 | 1st | NCAA Division I Sweet 16 | ||||
1996β97 | Georgia Tech | 9β18 | 3β13 | 9th | |||||
1997β98 | Georgia Tech | 19β14 | 6β10 | 6th | NIT Quarterfinal | ||||
1998β99 | Georgia Tech | 15β16 | 6β10 | Tβ5th | NIT First Round | ||||
1999β00 | Georgia Tech | 13β17 | 5β11 | 8th | |||||
Georgia Tech: | 354β237 (.599) | 134β150 (.472) | |||||||
College of Charleston Cougars (Southern Conference) (2006β2012) | |||||||||
2006β07 | College of Charleston | 22β11 | 13β5 | 2nd (South) | |||||
2007β08 | College of Charleston | 16β17 | 9β11 | 3rd (South) | |||||
2008β09 | College of Charleston | 27β9 | 15β5 | 3rd (South) | CBI Second Round | ||||
2009β10 | College of Charleston | 22β12 | 14β4 | 2nd (South) | CBI Second Round | ||||
2010β11 | College of Charleston | 26β11 | 14β4 | 1st (South) | NIT Quarterfinal | ||||
2011β12 | College of Charleston | 12β8 * | 4β5 * | 4th (South) | |||||
College of Charleston: | 125β68 (.648) | 69β34 (.670) | |||||||
Total: | 579β375 (.607) | ||||||||
National champion
Postseason invitational champion
|
*= Team record at the time of Cremins' medical leave of absence on January 27, 2012. CofC finished season 19β12 overall with interim head coach Mark Byington being credited with a 7β4 coaching record.
Personal lifeβ»
With his wife Carolyn, Cremins has one child, Bobby III, who is married to Jennifer, and two grandsons, Risen (Robert Joseph Cremins IV) and Xander (Alexander Charles Cremins). He also has two step-daughters, Liz and Suzie, from Carolyn's earlier marriage. He lives in Hilton Head, South Carolina.
See alsoβ»
Referencesβ»
- ^ 1986 USA Basketball Archived November 13, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "College of Charleston stuns No. 9 North Carolina - College Basketball - Rivals.com". Archived from the original on September 8, 2014. Retrieved February 20, 2014.
- 1947 births
- Living people
- American expatriate basketball people in Ecuador
- Appalachian State Mountaineers men's basketball coaches
- Basketball coaches from New York (state)
- Basketball players from New York City
- College men's basketball head coaches in the United States
- Charleston Cougars men's basketball coaches
- Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets men's basketball coaches
- Point guards
- Point Park University people
- South Carolina Gamecocks men's basketball coaches
- South Carolina Gamecocks men's basketball players
- Sportspeople from Charleston, South Carolina
- Sportspeople from the Bronx
- United States men's national basketball team coaches
- American men's basketball players