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South Carolina athletics will soon be under new leadership.
According to multiple reports, South Carolina athletic director Ray Tanner intends to transition into a new role within the larger university. Tanner will remain in his current role while the school conducts a search to find his replacement. That search is already underway.
The news was revealed at a Board of Trustees meeting on Friday, per Gamecock Central’s Chris Clark. Clark also reported that Tanner will become “athletics director emeritus” and serve in the new role until June 2028.
“I’m humbled and honored that I have had the great fortune to be a part of this wonderful university and that will continue,” Tanner said in the release, per Clark. “For a while now, I have thought there’s going to come a time for Carolina to get a new athletics director, and the president and I have had those conversations. There was interest for me to remain at the university. I agreed to stay in a new role because of my passion for this university, this city, and this state.”
Tanner won back-to-back national championships in 2010 and 2011 as the Gamecocks’ baseball coach before taking over the athletic department in 2012. Last March, Tanner signed a contract extension that would keep him in place until 2026.
“I’m reluctant to accept his change as athletic director,” South Carolina President Michael Amiridis said during the BoR meeting, per The State’s Lou Bezjak.
Tanner has made major hires in football, men’s basketball, and baseball during his tenure. He hired Will Muschamp in 2016 and then fired him 7 games into the 2020 season. Tanner pivoted to Shane Beamer, who has the Gamecocks off to a 2-0 start to begin his fourth season.
The Gamecocks’ athletic director also hired Lamont Paris to replace Frank Martin, a move that paid dividends almost immediately. After an 11-21 debut season, South Carolina earned a 6-seed in the NCAA Tournament last season and won 26 games.
And in June, Tanner announced the hire of Paul Mainieri to replace Mark Kingston as the new head baseball coach. Mainieri coached LSU to a national title and 5 College World Series appearances before stepping away from the game in 2021. He returns as the active Division I wins leader (1,505 career victories) and will look to get South Carolina back to the CWS for the first time since 2012.
Derek Peterson does a bit of everything, not unlike Taysom Hill. He has covered Oklahoma, Nebraska, the Pac-12, and now delivers CFB-wide content.
