Pastides happy with football progress, looks forward to future
Just over one year into head coach Will Muschamp's tenure at South Carolina, school president Harris Pastides is confident that the Gamecocks landed the right person to lead their football program.
In a one-on-one, wide-ranging interview with Gamecock Central, Pastides said that he's been impressed with Carolina's six-win season and Birmingham Bowl birth after a 3-9 campaign last season and that he looks forward to the program's continued improvement.
"Outstanding, outstanding," Pastides said of Muschamp's first year on the job. "I hope the fan base of Gamecock Central would agree with me, I'm sure I would guess most would, maybe a few wouldn't, but he set the right tone. He is extremely hard-working, both on the recruiting trail and game preparation.
"Did we want to win even more? Sure. But did we take a big step forward? Absolutely. Is that good enough for the future? No. Do I believe I have to tell him that? No. Am I confident we're going to have a better season next year and the year after that? Yes. So, he got us to where I hoped he would."
Athletics director Ray Tanner was in charge of the hiring process when Muschamp was selected to replace Steve Spurrier, though Pastides followed along every step of the way, he says.
High-profile coaches are judged by their wins and losses, but Pastides says one word comes to mind when asked his top criteria for a coach other than his success in scoring more points than his opponents.
"Certainly integrity, and that's a hard word for people," Pastides said. "It's like Ray Tanner. By the way, I think all our coaches [have integrity], but let's look at Ray. I know he's going to make the right decision 99 percent of the time, because he's got integrity. So if he makes a bad decision, it might be for some other reason, but not because he didn't do the right thing."
Pastides added that he saw Muschamp's time at Florida as a positive rather than a negative, because he preferred a coach that had experience at the highest level.
"Ultimately, we got the right guy," Pastides said.
This is part 1 of a multi-part interview with South Carolina President Harris Pastides. Pastides was selected as the school's 28th president in 2008.
