Monte Lee Embraces Leggett’s Tigers

CLEMSON, S.C.—Monte Lee has a shadow. Perhaps that’s inevitable for a man in his position.

The first-year Clemson head coach went to battle at Doug Kingsmore Stadium on Sunday with a roster largely composed of players another man recruited, sitting in a dugout that another man called home for 22 years—and would likely still be calling home if he had had his way. That man didn’t go very far. In fact, Jack Leggett was sitting mere feet away from Lee on Sunday, a couple of rows deep in the stands, no longer the Tigers head coach but an orange-clad spectator.

Figuratively and literally, there was no escaping Leggett’s presence, especially with Lee taking part in the Reedy River Rivalry against South Carolina for the first time in a Clemson home uniform. Leggett’s Tiger paw prints are all over that fierce and historic rivalry, having steered Clemson through it for the last two decades. His influence still undeniably clings to the program, the roster, the stadium, the clubhouse, the culture.

So, yes, Monte Lee indeed has a shadow. But here’s the caveat: He isn’t running away from it. He’s made that point very clear.

Some coaches take over a program and immediately try to dismantle it, pare it down to its most basic elements and reconstruct it from scratch, making it entirely their own from the beginning. Lee isn’t one of those people; that’s not his mission.

“I think the worst thing a first-year head coach can say—and you hear first-year head coaches say this–is, ‘We’ve just go to get our own guys in here. Some of these guys, we just have to get them out and get some of our own guys in here,’” Lee said. “I think that’s the worst approach you can have as a coach in your first year. I think you have to embrace the players that are here.

“And that’s one thing that I’ve tried to send a message to these guys from Day One, that even though I am the new head coach, I’m going to embrace you, I’m going to embrace the team, I’m going to do everything I can to help you be successful. That’s what my job is. My job is to put my players in a position to be successful.”

So far—and it’s still very early—Lee has been a man of his word. He has guided the roster he inherited from Leggett, whom Clemson unceremoniously parted ways with last June, to an 8-2 record through its first 10 games. Lee has also passed his most crucial early test, the true inauguration of a Clemson head coach—beating the Gamecocks.

After a brutal, defensively sloppy 8-1 loss to South Carolina in Columbia, Lee’s Tigers regrouped to shut down the Gamecocks, 5-0, at Fluor Field in Greenville and 4-1 at Doug Kingsmore to seal the series win at home. The significance of that win to the program, to the fan base and to the state of South Carolina isn’t lost on Lee.

Born in Spartanburg, Lee, 39, has lived, played and coached in South Carolina his entire life. A standout player at College of Charleston, Lee coached the Cougars for the last seven years. Before that, he was part of the Reedy River Rivalry from the other side, as an assistant on Ray Tanner’s South Carolina coaching staff from 2003 to 2008.

He knows as much as anyone what this past weekend means.

“I’ve said it time and time again, what makes the rivalry so special is in the state of South Carolina, we don’t have any professional sports,” Lee said. “Clemson and South Carolina is the MLB, the NBA, the NFL for the people of South Carolina, so it’s so special to me to be a part of this rivalry and to win the series, to be a part of the team.

“And my guys did it. I didn’t do anything. I sat back and watched a group of players compete between the lines and have fun and do it together.”

Those players and the Clemson program are riding high right now. Lee has cleared the first hurdle—but it’s just the first of many.

The Eye of the Tigers

The Tigers have been here before.

Coaching change aside, the beginning to this season is a near carbon copy of last year—the Tigers’ last under Leggett.

A winning non-conference record? Check. Last season, the Tigers began 7-3. A series win against South Carolina? Check. Clemson defeated the then-No. 12 Gamecocks in impressive fashion in the rubber game in Columbia, led by junior righthander Brady Koerner’s complete-game shutout—the first by a Clemson pitcher in Columbia since 1972.

Koerner said excitedly after that game, “I think it shows we’re one of the top 25 teams in the country.”

But the Tigers reeled from there. They lost seven of their next nine games, starting with a midweek loss to Winthrop immediately following the Reedy River Rivalry series.

Who do the Tigers play after South Carolina this year? Yes, Winthrop. The Eagles come to Clemson this afternoon.

“If you remember, we (beat South Carolina) last year and we played Winthrop in a midweek game and kind of lost our focus and lost that game, and that kind of transpired into the rest of the season,” said redshirt junior Andrew Cox, who had the big two-run single in Clemson’s win Sunday.

“So we can’t take this game on Wednesday lightly at all because that’s what got the wheels rolling backwards for us last season.”

Buoyed by a late-season sweep of Florida State in Tallahassee, the Tigers were still able to claw their way into the Fullerton Regional last year. But a regional berth still wasn’t enough to salvage Leggett’s job after Clemson went 0-2 against Arizona State and Pepperdine in the postseason.

What path will Clemson—featuring many of the same players—take this year? That obviously remains uncertain. Lee himself said he’s still learning about the men in his locker room.

But there are reasons for optimism. Clemson boasts plenty of returning talent, particularly on the offensive side, which is laden with veterans. Junior catcher Chris Okey, off to a .242/.419/.515 14 RBI start, is one of the top catchers in the 2016 draft class. Juniors Weston Wilson (.389/.442/.444) and Reed Rohlman (.351/.419/.486) are swinging well early. Freshman outfielder Seth Beer, one of the country’s most highly regarded incoming recruits, has lived up to the hype so far (.387/.486/.710, three home runs), and he recently moved into the cleanup spot in the lineup.

Most of the preseason qualms with Clemson came on the pitching side, where the Tigers lost ace lefthander Matthew Crownover, Zack Erwin and Koerner to the draft. Clemson doesn’t have the same level of raw stuff in this season’s weekend group, but Lee said he was impressed in the fall with his staff’s strike-throwing ability, and early on, sophomore lefthander Charlie Barnes, senior righthander Clate Schmidt and freshman righthander Alex Eubanks have been up to the task.

Schmidt and Eubanks, specifically, dominated the Gamecocks on Saturday and Sunday, combining to allow just one run on seven hits in 13 innings despite barely sniffing 90 mph. Schmidt kept South Carolina off balance with his changeup, Eubanks with two different breaking balls. Both threw strikes and kept the ball low in the zone, and they’ll need to continue to do that for the Tigers to be successful.

Lee is still learning about all of these players, how and when to use them, who he should trust and who he shouldn’t. But if the first 10 games and the series against South Carolina have taught him anything, he said, it’s that he has a resilient group.

Lee said on more than one occasion that he was pleased with the way Clemson bounced back from last Friday’s deflating series-opening loss. The Tigers could have panicked; instead, they won the next two games.

That wasn’t by accident.

“A lot of it has to do with the type of makeup and character we have on this team, which I think is very high, and I’ve given Coach Leggett a lot of credit for that,” Lee said.

“Coach Leggett did an unbelievable job of developing men of character, and that’s one thing that I inherited. If I inherited anything, it’s men of character that work hard and do things the right way.”

And for Lee, those men of character are very much worth embracing.