Legendary coach Carrick retires

In 1982, Putnam County High School girls’ basketball coach John Carrick led a team known for losing to an undefeated 29-0 season and a Class AA state championship. A year later, Carrick took over as head coach of the then-Lady Colonials of Georgia College after they had stumbled to a 2-22 record the previous season. Twenty-seven years with him at the helm later, GCSU has had 21 winning seasons and six NCAA tournament appearances. The Carrick era came to an end this past Monday when he announced his retirement from coaching. Carrick is the longest-serving head coach for any sport in school history.

“Twenty-seven years is a lot of time doing anything, and by most coaching standards I’ve become somewhat of a dinosaur and ancient,” said the coach, who has been noted for his quirky sense of humor. “Every chapter in life has a last page. This is the last page for this one and I’m ready to start another one.”

“John has been nothing short of an institution here,” GCSU Sports Information Director Al Weston said. “Thankfully I’ve been able to learn a lot of stuff from him, even about being a better S.I.D. He’s had to work as a trainer before, so he knows a little bit about everything.”

“He’s always been appreciative of the work we’ve done in sports information, and he’s a very interesting guy with a lot of humor and lots of interesting stories,” Weston added.

Under Carrick’s direction, GCSU has amassed a record of 474 wins and 305 losses. Most recently the Lady Bobcats finished 21-8 in the 2009-10 season, winning the Peach Belt Conference West Division title and advancing to the conference tournament semifinals before surprisingly being left out of the NCAA tournament. For Carrick, it was his ninth 20-win season as coach of his alma mater, which he graduated from in 1974.

Carrick posted his first winning season at GCSU in 1985-86, just two years after he took over a team with a dismal record. The Colonials posted back-to-back 20-win seasons in 1987-88 and 1988-89. In 1990, GCSU switched from NAIA to NCAA Division II competition in the inaugural year of the Peach Belt Conference and went on to post an 18-11 mark. The following season they went 22-7 and were co-champions of the PBC during the regular season.

Carrick’s most successful stretch came in the 1995-96 and 1996-97 seasons, during which the Bobcats won their first outright regular season conference title, first conference tournament title and back-to-back NCAA tournament births. In 2002, the Bobcats were the lowest seeded team ever to win the conference tournament, knocking off both divisional champions to advance on to the national tourney. GCSU followed with conference tournament titles in 2004 and 2006.

“Coach Carrick has taken our program to great heights and national prominence,” GCSU Athletic Director Wendell Staton said. “Something else that gets overlooked is the high school camp that we host here. It’s one of the most successful camps in the Southeast and it can be attributed to his leadership. It really exposes more people and potential players to our university.”

Carrick said he will miss the people of GCSU more than anything.

“All the people and close friendships I’ve formed stand out the most,” Carrick said. “There are numerous coaches I’ve worked with and shared lives with. This is my fourth athletic director, my third president.”

But even more, Carrick said he will miss his players.

“They’ve been the greatest of all. I have so many of them still calling me today and telling me about their daughters and their daughters’ jump shots and how they can’t wait for me to coach them,” Carrick said. “That’s the greatest part right there. This is a crazy profession, it’s lovely when you win and not so lovely when you don’t, but you never forget your players.”

And while Carrick and his players had plenty of success on the court in his near three-decade run, it’s their success in the classroom that he’s most proud of.

“Ninety-two percent of the young ladies I’ve coached here have graduated. That’s the nicest thing,” Carrick said. “So many of them have become doctors, nurses, accountants, business CEOs and such, and that’s what has made my job worthwhile – knowing that I helped and was a part of their road to their careers.”

Staton said GCSU will begin its search for a full-time replacement for Carrick and hopes to have that replacement by July. Whoever it is, Carrick said, will inherit a team more than capable of continuing to win.

“All the resources are there,” he said. “I have all the confidence in the world that this program will continue to prosper.”

Posted by Scotty Thompson on Apr 16 2010. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry