South Carolina Basketball: Ranking the worst coaches in Gamecock history
By Kevin Miller
South Carolina Basketball’s No. 3 Worst Coach of All-Time:
Ted Petoskey
Ted Petoskey (1935-1940) followed Rock Norman as the head coach of the Gamecocks. After Norman had turned the program around (Norman took over a progam with a losing record and slowly fixed the culture until the Gamecocks went 50-12 in the three seasons before Petoskey’s arrival), the three-sport athlete from the University of Michigan followed the retired Norman.
Petoskey’s first two seasons in Coumbia were pretty good as he won more games than he lost with Norman’s players and culture in place. However, that moderate success faded quickly as Petoskey went 13-52 in his final three years as the Gamecocks’ head coach, winning just 3, 5, and 5 games, respectively, in those last three seasons.
That terrible finish brought Petoskey’s overall win-loss record to a remarkably bad 37-67 even after the strong start with Rock Norman’s players. The problem was obviously coaching as the Gamecocks immediately rolled out five-straight winning seasons after his dismissal.
To make matters worse, after Petoskey was fired as the head coach of the South Carolina basketball team, he was (for some reason) hired to lead the baseball team. He subsequently led the Gamecocks to a losing record over three seasons. After being fired yet again, Petoskey went to Spartanburg to coach the Wofford Terrier football team and also led them to a losing record.