Tanner: USC discussing Hall of Fame at Williams-Brice

SOUTH CAROLINA GAMECOCKS BASEBALL

South Carolina’s outfield wall will get some new artwork this weekend with the Gamecocks officially retiring Earl Bass’s jersey, but there might soon be a place where all of the Gamecocks’ retired jerseys can be displayed under one roof.

The university and athletic department are in discussions right now for a potential Gamecock Hall of Fame at Williams-Brice Stadium.

"We're undergoing a retrofit now with vacated space thanks to the Long Football Family Operations Center,” athletic director Ray Tanner said. “If it passes the next steps in the state process we'll have some space. There's talk of opportunities there that if the space we're thinking about is big enough that we could have something like that in that location."

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The Gamecock football team moved all of its day-to-day operations over to the new state-of-the-art operations center at the beginning of January, leaving vacant space at the football stadium where coach offices and meeting rooms used to be.

Tanner said those talks are still in their infancy and he doesn’t want to “get ahead of his skis” but thinks an actual Hall of Fame at Williams-Brice would be a “perfect scenario.”

The first steps in that would be retiring jersey numbers, which starts with the baseball program and Earl Bass this weekend.

Bass is the first Gamecock baseball player to have his jersey retired with the only other retired number being Tanner’s, which still is emblazoned along the left field wall at Founders Park.

Bass's jersey will be retired before South Carolina’s game Saturday against No. 4 Vanderbilt with first pitch scheduled for 8 p.m. on ESPNU.

"It's tremendously important to honor the history of this program," Gamecock head coach Mark Kingston said. "It's been important to our university, this country and I think honoring the tradition of the people that played our sport is important. And Earl Bass obviously was one of the best that ever played here. It’s great to see his honoring this weekend."

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Bass was an All-American at South Carolina in the mid-70s, compiling a 34-3 record even with an arm injury shortening the majority of the 1973 season. He still owns the team’s school records with 10 shutouts, 392 strikeouts and an ERA of 1.34.

The All-American passed away earlier last year in February and still leaves an impact on almost everyone he came across in the athletics department.

"It was important early in my career when I started coaching here that those guys would come back. They all talked about Earl Bass,” Tanner said. “They'd say we'd have some good players and good pitchers here or there but Earl Bass was the best of the best. And the numbers will frighten you. Sometimes you say, 'I think I'd like to grab a bat today.' I don't think when Earl Bass was on the mound you wanted to grab a bat if you looked at the statistics. We're delighted to retire his jersey."

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South Carolina has already started retiring other jerseys across other sports with Trinity Johnson (softball) and track and field legends Miki Barber and Terrence Trammell seeing their jerseys retired as well.

Bass is just the first of many baseball jerseys the Gamecocks are expected to retire over the coming years.

No names have officially been released yet, but there are a few guys the program would like to honor moving forward.

"I think there's a ton of other guys that will be next in line; a ton,” Kingston said. “It’s a matter getting that in front of the council and who they want to be next. There’s a long line of guys that deserved to be honored in our program."