Cremins retiring from coaching
Former Georgia Tech coach Bobby Cremins announced his retirement Monday at a news conference at the College of Charleston. Cremins had coached at the school for six seasons after retiring from Tech but took a leave of absence in late January due to exhaustion.
“I had nothing,” Cremins told the Associated Press in early February. “I had no gas.”
Cremins, 64, will remain at the school as a fundraiser and consultant.
Cremins coached at Tech for 19 seasons, from 1981 to 2000, and finished his tenure as the school’s all-time winningest coach and nine NCAA tournament berths, including the Jackets’ first Final Four trip in 1990. He also led Tech to three ACC tournament titles and two regular-season titles.
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122 comments Add your comment
JRHD
March 19th, 2012
5:28 pm
Man, I thought I was the only UGA fan/grad who secretly loved Coach Cremins. I grew up a Bulldog, but I LOVED going to the Thriller Dome for games in the 80’s as a kid. There is/was NO PLACE for bball like the Golden N!pple! That place was rockin’ back then. Stephon “One and Done” Marbury (I know he played in the 90’s), the Fabulous Berry Boys, Kenny Anderson, Mark Price, Dennis Scott, WOW – could he bring in the players! Thanks for all the memories Coach.
Newtonite
March 19th, 2012
5:35 pm
A sad day for goodbyes — Bobby retires and Furman Bisher passed away. But the sun will shine tomorrow.
No way
March 19th, 2012
5:45 pm
Thanks Coach!
GT Sports Fan
March 19th, 2012
5:53 pm
Ill never forget watching Bobbys brother (the bar owner), in the stands waving his own son around like a towel when Bobbys team beat USC under Raveling to get to the Sweet 16.
collegeballfan
March 19th, 2012
5:59 pm
Cremins made Georgia tech a program that mattered in college basketball. Tech people owe him a lot of gratitude.
Gregory’s job is to bring that back.
TSleazy
March 19th, 2012
6:03 pm
Tech Basketball hasn’t been the same since he left!!!! Good luck in your retirement, you’ve earned it.
GT
March 19th, 2012
6:03 pm
Basketball was an event at Tech in the Cremins days. A crowded place, games usually starting a little late, the pep band blowing it out in the stands, and nail biting games against the some of the greatest teams ever to play college basketball. Tech has had two great Bobbys one Dodd the other Cremins. When they left it was never the same. Football got watered down with the parity, no joy knocking off an Alabama or Georgia and then basketball which could play with the same number of scholarships got caught in the one and done era. The game changed not the coach, no more filled Alexanders, no Coach K or Lefty or Dean having a fit. I think some Chinese manufacturer knocked off a poor bootleg of Tech basketball when no one was looking.
GoldJacket
March 19th, 2012
6:31 pm
Good luck to you, Coach! Rest up and see what else life has to offer
Paul in NH
March 19th, 2012
6:35 pm
I was at GT for the last home game of the Duane Morrison era – a blow out loss to UNC where Dean started his scrubs – and it was difficult to imagine that GT would ever be competitive in the ACC. Bobby Cremins built the program and GT fans owe him a debt.
Paul in NH
March 19th, 2012
6:40 pm
The ACC in the late 80’s was at a pinnacle with great coaches and players all around the league. From 1985 – 93 GT won 3 ACC championships – the same number as Duke and 1 more than UNC. That was all down to Bobby.
unlikw phewitt
March 19th, 2012
6:41 pm
bobby is the most beloved coach in tech history.
uga has vince the cheater dooley
gt has everybody loves and respects bobby cremmins
bobby will be enshrined into the gt hall of fame. phewitt will be enshrined no where. maybe the empty suit hood.
bobby saved the sport programs at gt. phewitt was a user and a crappy coach that enraged most fans for the last useless years of his reign.
JB
March 19th, 2012
6:43 pm
I’m a Dawg, buy I was glued to those lethal 3 years ( or was it 4). That was some good basketball. Tech’s finest hour in my lifetime, Football or Basketball. We have our own Cremins coaching our Football team. Very much beloved, but can’t quite bring home the bacon.
Good Luck
March 19th, 2012
6:59 pm
In 1993 Tech beat Duke in the first round of the ACC tournament. Then they beat Clemson. Then they beat UNC for the Tournament Championship. UNC went on to win the National Title. So by proxy Tech is the the 1993 National Champion. Isn’t that the way some people look at it? I really just look at it as winning the Tournament Championship but some people use this analogy all the time. I won’t be specific but those folks root for the team east of Atlanta. Having said that thanks for the polite and genuine post Bulldog fans.
Bar bee
March 19th, 2012
7:21 pm
BOBBY CREMINS will return to Ga Tech to lend a hand with the new coach. God knows the new program could use his help.
HighTech
March 19th, 2012
7:24 pm
Thanks for the memories Coach Cremins. Enjoy your retirement.
5150 UOAD
March 19th, 2012
7:27 pm
Very nice man. Never used his timeouts enough at the end of games at Tech to set up winning plays. He had such great guards he just let them go down and do their thing. Sometimes it worked sometimes it didn’t. Loved Bobby either way.
A storm is coming...
March 19th, 2012
7:36 pm
Thanks Bobby! You are a good man and I will always remember you!
Another UGA grad
March 19th, 2012
7:48 pm
here that liked Bobby. (Still pulled for the Dogs when we played however). One poster referred to the annual Omni battle between Tech and UGA. Two games stand out. One was when a Tech walk-on nailed a last second shot in a high scoring triple overtime game (think that was Kenny Anderson’s team). Another was when Jumping Joe Ward hit a last second shot from the foul line to give Hugh Durham a win.
Tech Man
March 19th, 2012
7:58 pm
As you can see, not a bad word about this man. He is just a fine gentleman. He and Mark Price will forever be Georgia Tech basketball. I remember a quote he once made when Price came to Tech as a star recruit. Quote “Mark Price is playing with my pay check in his mouth.” What a person. Good luck Bobby and take care of yourself.
BirminghamJacket
March 19th, 2012
8:21 pm
I was at Tech the first time this guy “left”, but returned. The student body was disappointed. Most over-rated in Tech history. A “Bill Curry” at basketball.
Bobby Ross, Fridge and Oleary are the only coaches we’ve had since Dodd that are any good..
birhinham jacket you need to
March 19th, 2012
8:37 pm
go kill a tree you poser
Delbert D.
March 19th, 2012
8:37 pm
Love the guy, nobody like him. “Duke is our nemis.”
70 great post than we have
March 19th, 2012
8:39 pm
Birmingham Jacket….. clearly an a hole with no friends.
Buzzzed
March 19th, 2012
8:39 pm
“How to Win Friends and Influence People” – Cremins lived this book
Vidalia man
March 19th, 2012
8:54 pm
Got Bobby’s picture in my living room, with our GT tailgating football crowd. While living in Hilton Head, and before Charleston, he came to Ga.-Ga. Tech game, and parked at Peters. He had time for us all to take several pictures with him.One of my buddies at Fed EX. was a friend of his, and Bobby would call him about every two weeks to check on him in Wrigtsville after my Buddy retired. My Buddy had very little money, but Bobby liked everybody, regardless of what they had. A fine Coach and gentleman.
christophorm
March 19th, 2012
8:59 pm
He is GT basketball.
R. Perdoni
March 19th, 2012
9:24 pm
Well put, Vidalia man. A fine coach and a gentleman. Reading all the comments it strikes me how many had personal encounters with Bobby and in all cases he took the time to show he cared. I remember meeting him at a charity golf tournament in the 90’s and he had a few words and a big grin for anyone approaching him. What a prince of a guy. The ACC in the 80’s and 90’s was a great place to call home………….
Voice of Reason
March 19th, 2012
9:35 pm
Got to visit a practice late in the 1986 season. Coach Cremins showed me around like I was a blue chip recruit. Asked me to sit at least 10 rows from the floor during practice, then came up afterwards and asked me to join in the shoot around. I hit several in a row from the wing with him watching me. It was alot of fun for a guy in his late 20’s to get to experience that, if only for a moment. Coach and the team seemed to enjoy it almost as much as I did. Used to love to hear him botch names, especially Dalrymple. Funny guy who truly had a passion for people and the game.
Good Luck
March 19th, 2012
9:35 pm
Birmingham Jacket, you are a very glib person. Cremins put Tech on the map. God bless Bobby Cremins.
blazer
March 19th, 2012
10:26 pm
Thanks for the memories at AMC.
Go Jackets!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
GT Alum
March 19th, 2012
11:12 pm
Promethius, I’m from upstate New York. It’s just the city that I’m prejudiced against.
Jacket 86
March 19th, 2012
11:12 pm
I was lucky enough to be at Tech during the birth of the basketball program. Like Price and Spider Salley, I was in the class of ‘86. I’ll never forget that first ACC championship our junior year – to this day my greatest sports memory. The AJC article opened with “A vagabond is sitting on the throne.” The vagabond reference was for the Tech basketball program as a whole – but could have just as easily been about Cremins himself. He is a simple down-to-earth man that achieved greatness through hard work and enthusiasm. I will always be one of his many “greatest fans”.
hryder
March 19th, 2012
11:20 pm
Think people are biased against New Yorkers, try taking a vacation when people see a Mississippi car tag on the vehicle you drive. Vote out ALL INCUMBENT elected office holders in November.
Paul in NH
March 19th, 2012
11:26 pm
BirminghamJacket
March 19th, 2012
8:21 pm
I was at Tech the first time this guy “left”, but returned. The student body was disappointed. Most over-rated in Tech history. A “Bill Curry” at basketball.
Bobby Ross, Fridge and Oleary are the only coaches we’ve had since Dodd that are any good..
—-
And yet somehow Cremins won one more outright ACC title than every football coach combined. Of course, when Cremins coached there were no good coaches in the league – apart from Dean Smith, Mike Krzyzewski, Jim Valvano, Lefty Driesell, Terry Holland, Dave Odom, Cliff Ellis….
'62 Jacket
March 19th, 2012
11:27 pm
I got to know Bobby as president of a local GT alum club. He visited with our club before the away game in our area every year and at several club dinners. Always treated everyone he met with great respect, interest and warmth – a real class act. Saw him in the crowd at Savannah St Pat’s parade and spoke for a while – a lot of people recognized him – he spoke and shook hands with them all and posed with many for pictures, smiling all the while. An announcer at the last ACC tournament game he coached said at the end of the game “The ACC just lost its happy face.”
Thanks, Bobby for all that you did for Tech and its fans – wish you all the best!
William Casey
March 19th, 2012
11:30 pm
Nobody has mentioned one of the true marks of integrity that Coach Cremins exhibited, one that sometimes got him in trouble: he never recruited “over” one of his players, that is, bringing in a new recruit to take playing time from a previous recruit. In good years, GT had the best starting five in the ACC and a thin bench (i.e.- the Lethal Weapon 3″ team.) When he made a rare recruiting misjudgement (i.e.- Kevin Morris or Pablo Machado), it lead to poor records. The “one (or two) & dones” really hurt Bobby’s way of doing things. In any case, Bobby Cremins is the face of GT basketball and I’m glad he is.
David Granger
March 20th, 2012
12:29 am
Certainly put Georgia Tech hoops on the map.
Cremins was a great recruiter, not so good as a coach. (Sort of a basketball version of Mark Richt.)
Donnafrob
March 20th, 2012
12:31 am
Will will never be another Cremins! Thanks for all the great years in the Thrillerdome.
'62 Jacket
March 20th, 2012
12:35 am
Should have noted that That the St. Pat’s parade in Savannah when we saw Bobby was 8-10 years ago, not this year.
William
March 20th, 2012
2:37 am
Enjoy yourself. Don’t look back.
Buzz 2011
March 20th, 2012
5:55 am
Great coach!! Go Jackets… We will push and make big dance next year!!!
Ben
March 20th, 2012
6:28 am
You’re the best, Bobby! You and your teams created so many memories from my childhood that I will always treasure….
Burdell
March 20th, 2012
7:37 am
Birmingham Jacket is a poser…
I have always hoped that Cremins would return to Tech basketball in some role. I think he and CBG would make a fine tandem on the recruiting trail. Looks like CBG can close the deal with what we have seen so far…just imagine all the doors that Cremins could open for him.
Enjoy your retirement Coach!
carolinajacket
March 20th, 2012
8:19 am
I love the guy. He is classy and a lot of fun. I hope he recovers and enjoys many years in the wonderful town of Charleston.
UGAX
March 20th, 2012
8:20 am
UGA guy here but LOVED going to the dome during th 80’s to watch him build a dynasty at GT. Great coach and even better man. Class act all the way. Good luck in your retirement, Bobby!
Phil
March 20th, 2012
8:53 am
One of the finest people in College Coaching, across all sports. Just a great person who won and lost with Character and Class. College Sports will miss him. Georgia Tech has missed him has for a Long Time!
eg
March 20th, 2012
8:55 am
I am a Tech fan because of Bobby Cremins. A big thrill for me was getting his autograph at the Alhambra Catholic Invitational in Maryland. I hope he will do some TV work — such a genuine, engaging man. Much love and respect always!
Take a Bow Coach Cremins
March 20th, 2012
9:19 am
I’m no Tech fan but how can you not love Coach Cremins?
The guy exudes excitement and his love of the game is infectious.
Wish he had stayed at Tech.
Chuck Allison
March 20th, 2012
9:44 am
Yes, Bobby, thanks for putting Tech basketball on the map. We apologize for Paul Hewitt who almost took Tech basketball completely back off the map.
GeorgePBurdellNE
March 20th, 2012
9:56 am
Tbanks for the memories “Mop Head”. Wishing you the best in the future.