What made the Cremins years so special?

[Peacone36]

Winning

 

[alagold]

The assembling of GREAT players.

 

[Vespidae]

What made the Cremins years so special?

Frank McGuire.

McGuire was a New Yorker and ... Cremins' coach at South Carolina. People often think that Homer Rice picked some young kid from App State to coach at GT, but the reality is he selected Cremins based on his ACC experience AND his tutelage under McGuire. It was McGuire who opened up NYC (and all his contacts) to Bobby Cremins and his style of Five Best Play.

Here's the Wiki snapshot on McGuire:

McGuire holds the record for most victories in a season without a loss, together with Bobby Knight of the 1976 Indiana Hoosiers, at 32-0.

He achieved the number one ranking with both the University of North Carolina and South Carolina, and is one of five coaches--John Calipari, Larry Brown, Roy Williams and Rick Pitino are the others—to take two different schools to the NCAA Finals. He is one of 15 coaches, as of 2021, to take multiple schools to the Final Four. The others are: Roy Williams, Lute Olson, Jack Gardner, Forddy Anderson, Larry Brown, Eddie Sutton, John Calipari, Rick Pitino, Gene Bartow, Hugh Durham, Lou Henson, Bob Huggins, Kelvin Sampson, and Lee Rose.

McGuire was famous for using his New York City ties to enlist players to come south to play at UNC and USC, and was known as one of the top recruiters in the sport, frequently joking about how successful his New York City players, many of them Jewish and Catholic, were in Baptist-prevalent North Carolina and South Carolina.

After the low point of Tech athletics in the late 70's, the arrival of Homer Rice and the hiring of Curry (and later Ross), Cremins, and Jim Morris ushered in a helluva lot of excitement. Great times to be a Tech fan then ...

 

[Dress2Jacket]

The Cremins era was special for many reasons.

First, Bobby Cremins was the nicest, most enthusiastic person you'd ever meet. He'd accept invitations to talk at a Fraternity or a Dorm after practice and he'd stay for hours. No drop by for 10 minutes, check the box, and move on stuff from him. The guy was 100% genuine.

Second. The players. They went to class. They played pickup ball at SAC. They were (sort of) regular students. Some of them were unique.

Yvon Joseph remains to this day the most imposing person I've seen in person. Rock solid, 6'11, and was in a couple of my ME classes. Graduated with an ME degree and passed on a pro basketball career (he was drafted in the second round by the Knicks) to be a mechanical engineer. And this was a guy from Haiti, which makes his accomplishments even more special.

Price. Iconic.

John Salley. The lady's man. Always hitting on the co-eds. Very high profile on campus. Parked anywhere he wanted. Surprisingly, never got towed. Tremendous athlete. I remember him violently dunking over Ralph Sampson. (And Ralph returning the favor). Omni '83.

Third. The program had momentum. The team got better every game. The Thrillerdome frickin' rocked. It was incredible.

 

[ThatGuy]

It was the student body freshman class that came in the fall of 1981 with Bobby. If it wasn't for that class... Well it wouldn't have been pretty.

Seriously though in '82 and '83 I remember CBC accepting invitations to residence halls, fraternities, in just about anywhere that he would be invited on campus to discuss the program and get students involved. That dedication from coach and of course getting some special recruits helped get the scales to some great Georgia Tech basketball during the mid 80s and early '90s.

I grew up in Fayette County, and my dad either founded or stoked the flames of the Yellow Jacket Club of Fayette County when I was little. He told me a story about sometime around the time you mentioned (1984, IIRC), one night they got Bobby Cremins to drive down to Fayetteville and speak to the YJ Club members.

Towards the end of the talk, he mentioned he needed to go, and apologized for leaving so early - the next day was national signing day, and he needed to go make a phone call to a recruit he was trying to land. Apparently the YJ Club hadn't realized what day they were scheduling him for - otherwise, they wouldn't have done it.

My dad said "Our house is right down the road, you're welcome to come use our phone," but Cremins said "Nah, I saw a Shoney's on the way in - I'll just stop there."

Turns out the recruit was Duane Ferrell.

Anyway, it speaks to his dedication to the program and his relentless drive to make it successful that he took the time, on the day before national signing day, to drive an hour away from his office and speak to some alums and fans about the program. He got that he wasn't just building a team - he was building a program. And as a kid going to Georgia Tech games throughout the 80's, you could feel that.

 

[Ramble1885]

The Cremins era was special for many reasons.

First, Bobby Cremins was the nicest, most enthusiastic person you'd ever meet. He'd accept invitations to talk at a Fraternity or a Dorm after practice and he'd stay for hours. No drop by for 10 minutes, check the box, and move on stuff from him. The guy was 100% genuine.

Second. The players. They went to class. They played pickup ball at SAC. They were (sort of) regular students. Some of them were unique.

Yvon Joseph remains to this day the most imposing person I've seen in person. Rock solid, 6'11, and was in a couple of my ME classes. Graduated with an ME degree and passed on a pro basketball career (he was drafted in the second round by the Knicks) to be a mechanical engineer. And this was a guy from Haiti, which makes his accomplishments even more special.

Price. Iconic.

John Salley. The lady's man. Always hitting on the co-eds. Very high profile on campus. Parked anywhere he wanted. Surprisingly, never got towed. Tremendous athlete. I remember him violently dunking over Ralph Sampson. (And Ralph returning the favor). Omni '83.

Third. The program had momentum. The team got better every game. The Thrillerdome frickin' rocked. It was incredible.

I hear from my Dad (class of 1989) that Tom Hammonds was like Salley in that he was also a ladies man.

 

[ThatGuy]

I remember the "Thrillerdome," and how many games I saw there that came down to the last minute. Last minute to-the-buzzer finishes are always exciting, and we had more than our fair share of them, it seemed. And the most important part: more often than not in those situations, the teams somehow found a way to win. (And as others said, they got better over time.)

We never won them all, but as time went on, every game you knew we were going to put a competitive product on the court.

I also remember Bobby Cremins Day at the games, where the students would dress up in trademark khakis, blue blazers, yellow ties, and baby powder to turn their hair the perfect shade of white. There was just a good energy at that time. His "recruiting" of the students to get involved paid dividends for the atmosphere at the games.

When Pastner started, I saw that he had a similar vibe about him.

 

[Yoda]

I hear from my Dad (class of 1989) that Tom Hammonds was like Salley in that he was also a ladies man.

Hammonds was a beast

 

[ESPNjacket]

I grew up in Fayette County, and my dad either founded or stoked the flames of the Yellow Jacket Club of Fayette County when I was little. He told me a story about sometime around the time you mentioned (1984, IIRC), one night they got Bobby Cremins to drive down to Fayetteville and speak to the YJ Club members.

Towards the end of the talk, he mentioned he needed to go, and apologized for leaving so early - the next day was national signing day, and he needed to go make a phone call to a recruit he was trying to land. Apparently the YJ Club hadn't realized what day they were scheduling him for - otherwise, they wouldn't have done it.

My dad said "Our house is right down the road, you're welcome to come use our phone," but Cremins said "Nah, I saw a Shoney's on the way in - I'll just stop there."

Turns out the recruit was Duane Ferrell.

Anyway, it speaks to his dedication to the program and his relentless drive to make it successful that he took the time, on the day before national signing day, to drive an hour away from his office and speak to some alums and fans about the program. He got that he wasn't just building a team - he was building a program. And as a kid going to Georgia Tech games throughout the 80's, you could feel that.

Bobby had tremendous energy. He did more appearances, like this one you mentioned, than any coach of any sport that I know about. He came to our fraternity once a year and would field any questions. He is one charismatic guy.

GT needed someone like him at that time. I don't think someone who was just a good basketball coach could have brought the excitement to the program like he did.

 

[jojatk]

I don’t know of one person that disliked Bobby. He was a lovable character, from drawing plays up on The Prices’ coffee table to answering the critics on why he only liked to play 5 or 6 guys at a time(Frank Maguire keep ‘em happy and develop that special chemistry).

Nobody, except Bark Madley, disliked Bobby Cremins because he was so genuinely a nice man. He cared about the people around him even if they were on the other end of the court. The Cremins years in the mid-late 80s were absolutely magical. I grew up in Maryland a HUGE ACC basketball fan. I loved watching the Terps with guys like Buck Williams, Albert King, Len Bias, and Adrian Branch. And when I saw Mark Price play for the first time when he was a frosh I was transfixed by this little guy bombing long jumpers and then when I saw his jersey said Georgia Tech, and I knew I wanted to go to school to major in aerospace engineering, I started some serious research into GT and from that day it was my top choice.

When I arrived on campus in the fall of 1984 it was the PERFECT time for an ACC basketball junkie to be a GT fan. Beating the mighty UNC THREE times. Beating Duke twice. Beating Maryland twice with Len Bias and Adrian Branch, both of whom I idolized. PS Len Bias may be the second best basketball player I ever saw close up, live, in-person (Michael Jordan is number 1 on my list of guys I saw play live multiple times). Winning the ACC Tournament for the first time in school history. Oh my goodness I am getting chills even typing this. I can't even put into words what that was like.

It took me 5 years (I co-oped) to get my AE degree and for the 1988-1989 season one of my friends who wrote for The Technique asked if I wanted to go cover a football game for him (we were pretty bad). I said that sounded like fun so my buddy and I went to the game. We had so much fun that we went to all the away football games that year. By the time basketball season rolled around we were in good graces with our editor so we got to do the majority of the coverage of the basketball team. And it was indescribably amazing. We got to sit down before the season and talk, 1:1, with Bobby. He was so wonderful to us. He treated us very differently than outside press. He trusted us that we understood that we held a different place than outside press because we were GT students just like the players. And he shared insights and info with us that he didn't share with other members of the press and we made sure he knew we appreciated that and several times he forgot to say "off the record" but we knew he meant it and wouldn't share those things in our articles. He quickly realized he didn't even need to tell us what was off or on the record. Sitting on press row at the UNC home game where Dennis Scott hit that 3 pointer was probably my second favorite moment in my GT basketball history (second to winning that first ACC tournament) because it happened right in front of us and I can tell you it felt like slow motion.

Anyway, I can wax lyrical about those years all day but I've already bored you enough, I'm sure.

BTW, Bark Madley is a jerk.

 

[jojatk]

Hammonds was a beast

Tommy was a completely different person on vs off the court. When he stepped on the court he was, as you described, a beast. He was completely dialed in to the game and wasn't going to take any crap from anyone. Off the court he was as nice a guy as you could possibly imagine.

 

[Techster]

If you want to know what made the Cremins years so special, listen to Stoudamire's intro presser from yesterday. What Cremins did all those years ago still has an impact today, and made an impression on Stoudamire coming here. It showed the elite potential of GT, and set the standard by which all coaches will be held to if they're going to be a GT MBB coach.

 

[slugboy]

There are a couple of things, and you’ve read some of them.

1. Bobby Cremins was friendly and radiated fun. Some coaches would have gotten mad when a bunch of college kids showed up to imitate him at games, but Cremins had a sense of humor.
2. We think he had a sense of humor—we’re still not sure what he said most of the time.
3. There are 341 D1 basketball teams now, and 32 conferences now. There were 29 conferences then, and they were smaller conferences. Georgia Tech was the newest member to the ACC through the 1980s. There were probably half as many D1 basketball teams then. You weren’t competing for attention with every school in the country—there was a smaller club of big time basketball teams, and we were in it.
4. The arenas were smaller, and the tickets were harder to come by, and the home crowd was a home crowd.
5. Even though we had been in sports for a long time, we were the Cinderella story in basketball then. Duke was a basketball power, but they were also the new guard—UNC was the old guard. The ACC was filled with good teams—NCST, Duke, UNC, Wake, and Virginia. Those first few years of winning were big upsets against basketball powers.
6. Basketball still had recruiting, but it changed in the late 80’s—one and done players, and much more money. The Tournament went to 64 teams in the mid 80s and the excitement followed that, and the money followed the excitement.
7. There was no real MLS—the fun fans were at basketball, especially college basketball. I don’t think it’s just GT—I think the in-game experience isn’t the same in college basketball as it was back then.

 

[4shotB]

I hear from my Dad (class of 1989) that Tom Hammonds was like Salley in that he was also a ladies man.

Of course he was a ladies man. All of us were back then. Or at least thought that we were which is essentially the same thing. If you get in, you will think so too. Or you can go somewhere else...you will think that there as well. It's one of the benefits of being a young man in college. Good luck and happy hunting young fellow.

 

[7979]

Had season tix throughout the 80's when I still lived in Atlanta. In one of his first years, they had a BC look-alike contest before one of the games. Ten students in powdered white hair, a sportcoat, and a yellow tie walked out of the tunnel. One of them walked directly over to BC's wife courtside, grabbed her in his arms, and kissed her on the lips.
Guess who won the contest.

 

[Vespidae]

Of course he was a ladies man. All of us were back then. Or at least thought that we were which is essentially the same thing. If you get in, you will think so too. Or you can go somewhere else...you will think that there as well. It's one of the benefits of being a young man in college. Good luck and happy hunting young fellow.

If you wanted to meet Hammonds, all you had to do was hit the Waffle House on Northside Drive around 2am. Almost always there.