'Win and win big': Clemson AD confident baseball job will attract high-profile candidates

Clemson AD Graham Neff says they are prepared to invest for a "high-profile" candidate.

by Brandon Rink - Staff Writer - Wed Jun 01 08:00:07 GMT-04:00 2022

"Win and win big."

Clemson athletic director Graham Neff repeated the phrase four times in a span of roughly 15 minutes during his news conference Tuesday, while stating his vision for Tiger baseball after announcing Monte Lee would no longer be the coach.

Lee was dismissed after his Tigers failed to make the NCAA Tournament for a second-straight year, a first in Clemson since the field went to 64 teams in 1999 and overall since 1986. After hosting three regionals and winning the conference in Lee’s first three years, Clemson went 95-76 overall and 44-51 in ACC action over the last three full seasons.

That didn’t fit Neff’s view of a program that’s historically competed with the nation’s best.

“I consider Clemson baseball a top-15 job,” Neff said. “Period. With the tradition, the resources, the facility, the fan base, the talent within this state of South Carolina and region, and I think that's where Clemson baseball should be. And what that means from a competition for postseason -- regional, super regional, Omaha. We've been to 12 College World Series and intend to increase that number.”

Neff said that there are aspects on his end of the deal that they have to work on to attract a top coach for the position.

"There's going to be investment and support,” he said. “It's important for us from a scholarship and an aid standpoint -- it's an incredibly important aspect for college baseball for a lot of our equivalency sports that we have great tools in the toolbox for our head coaches to go out and recruit and attract and build a program. Expectations on myself are to continue to support and invest with a new head coach and give them the resources to compete at a high level…

“We've taken steps administratively to build that support with summer school-fundraised dollars and how to add that to a student's full tenure at Clemson and how that would allow us to stretch the scholarship dollars. We call it the C.A.P. Award program. The Clemson Academic Performance Award, which is inherently the Alston (v. NCAA case) dollars that we're able to provide. We've been incredibly aggressive in how we've set that program and policy here for Clemson for all of our sports and all of our student-athletes and specifically and intentionally baseball and softball for coach (John) Rittman and our baseball coach to use those dollars to be very flexible and just adding dollars from an aid standpoint to student-athletes.

“Academic Common Market is another lever that I know we've talked on, off and on, that I won't dive into, but it's important on us administratively and we've taken steps and we will continue to take those to have great opportunities for our coaches and our baseball coach to recruit and raise that talent level that we expect to compete nationally."

The first-year athletic director said they are aiming high in this head coach pursuit.

“(Clemson) intend(s) to invest and go seek the best,” said Neff. “And that's easy to say but again we've done our due diligence on the market and have a sense of where that could be and where that could take us and so intend to start with high-profile, accomplished coaches. Identify great fit for Clemson mutually.

“And work from there, so that level of investment and focus is where we're going to start and whatever profile that shows itself to be, we're open to any type background or current condition."

Lee replaced Hall of Fame coach Jack Leggett in 2015 after the Tigers bowed out of the Cal State Fullerton Regional. The program had made each NCAA Tournament from 2009 to that point but fallen short of advancing to even a Super Regional since 2010, which is a drought to this day to address. After an early June decision on Leggett that year, Lee was announced as the new coach well into the College World Series.

Neff says he realizes he might have to wait on the ideal candidate with the NCAA Tournament starting this weekend.

“As we work through the evaluation and discussions with Monte -- we moved expiditiously through those and want to continue into the search,” he said. “But again, want to be incredibly respectful for the time of year and postseason and regionals and maybe where we would want to target some coaches. No set timeline. We have a couple scenarios just based on availability and candidates to discuss. But want to move quick. Are incredibly bullish on our job and the profile of our job as a top-15 job and the interest that it would have and again our desire to win and win big. And the requisite investment in resources that that would entail.

“We're ready to present a great package to get into those discussions with the timeline TBD.”