Making the case for and against hiring Monte Lee as South Carolina's next baseball coach

The quest to find the next head baseball coach at South Carolina is underway. In the days since Mark Kingston’s firing, there have been several potential candidates to keep an eye on for this position.

As the search continues, here are the reasons for why and why not the Gamecocks should look to hire Monte Lee as the next coach in Columbia.

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Why should South Carolina hire Lee?

In the hours after Kingston was officially fired, players and recruits took to social media to express who they’d like to see become their new coach. The overwhelming majority have made it clear they want Lee to take the reins. And it would make sense as he’s been a huge part in bringing them to South Carolina as recruiting coordinator.

Lee has also been responsible for the offense for the last two years. This season, the Gamecocks batted .274 as a team with 101 homers and an SEC-leading 382 walks. He’s turned players like Ethan Petry and Cole Messina into All-Americans.

Since Monday, Lee has served as interim head coach as the hiring process rolls on. But if Ray Tanner were to go with his former assistant from 2003-08, it wouldn’t be a difficult transition. In addition to his time on Tanner’s staff in the 2000’s, Lee was on Kingston’s staff for the past two years. And so he’s already familiar with the program and how to run things.

In terms of player retention, it would be a lot easier for Lee to keep most of the current roster out of the transfer portal. As it stands, there have only been five Gamecocks to enter the portal, but none of them were real impactful players this season. That means the rest of the team with eligibility remaining will want to wait and see who their next coach is before making a decision. If it’s Lee, many will probably stick around and want to play for him.

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Why shouldn’t South Carolina hire Lee?

While the players and recruits love him, this decision shouldn’t be made based off that alone. The facts of the case need to be made as well. When you look at Lee’s resume, he has plenty of head coaching experience.

He spent seven seasons at the College of Charleston where he took the Cougars to two regionals in his first five years. In 2014, Charleston made it to a Super Regional for the second time in program history. Then in Lee’s final year, the Cougars finished atop the CAA and returned to the postseason once again.

In June 2015, Lee became the 28th head coach at Clemson and saw immediate success. He took the Tigers to four straight regional appearances. But the only problem was that they couldn’t make it any farther than that.

And that would become a common theme of his tenure. After the COVID-19 season, Lee’s next two years were not as strong. Clemson failed to reach the postseason in 2021 and 2022. It’s also worth mentioning the Tigers finished under .500 in 2021 and failed to put together a winning record in ACC play in each of those last two years.

So that brings us back to now. While he’s a great recruiter and has support from the players, the results have been shaky at best. He did a lot of good things at Charleston by taking a smaller program to new heights. But at a program like Clemson, he couldn’t build an Omaha level team.

With a handful of other candidates out there, Lee is right in the mix for this job. He’s going to get a fair look. But when you stack him up against coaches like Tom Walter and Dan McDonnell, they’ve been to the College World Series. Lee hasn’t — not as a head coach at least. And even with others like Chris Pollard and Cliff Godwin, they’ve built sustainable winners at their respective programs. They just haven’t made it to Omaha yet.

When it comes to this hire, Tanner and the administration cannot take many risks. They must get this right. Lee would be a fine choice but there seem to be better candidates out there. And you have to ask yourself: can you confidently say Lee would be able to do what Kingston couldn’t? He might be able to, but for now, it’s somewhat of a question mark.

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