What If: Outstanding Seasons Left Unfulfilled as Claflin Goes Through Transition

By Mac Taylor

Claflin University just finished one of the best seasons in the history of their men and women’s basketball programs. But after traveling to Birmingham to watch this year’s SIAC Tournament, the best 1-2 punch in Claflin men and women’s basketball history could only sit in the stands and wonder what if.

The two groups combined for a record of 43-9 and what should be a period of hitting the road in the quest of a conference title during the madness of March, is simply the end of the road.

Claflin University is in an NCAA transitional period and expected to be approved as a member of the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference sometime in May, hence leaving both programs with no hopes of post-season accolades.

“This entire process was somewhat new to me,” said men’s head coach Ron Woodard. “I’ve coached at the Division II level before and was fully aware of the NCAA and their rules and regulations but I had no experience in the transition process.

“It’s been very challenging for our entire athletic staff, our teams and our university but the one thing we did know was that we had a solid plan,” he continued. “Our plan was to go Division II and join the SIAC; that was the conference we liked and we began marketing ourselves towards the SIAC and putting our plan into motion.”

Just completing his sixth season as the Panthers head coach, Woodard’s team turned their program around from a 12-14 season a year ago. A native of San Jose, California, Woodard said he was somewhat familiar with teams in the SIAC and the level of competition in the conference.

“It’s a rule of the NCAA that you play a conference schedule of the league you’re trying to join. Prior to this we’d played everybody in the SIAC with the exception of Morehouse, Albany State, Miles College, Tuskegee and LeMoyne-Owen so we were somewhat familiar with their programs,” he said.

On the women’s side of the spectrum, head coach Miriam Walker-Samuels’ Pantherettes posted 19-7 record and gave the coach a career mark of 115-78 but still something is missing.

“The most frustrating part of the transition for me has been that we couldn’t compete in post-season action; you have to wait three to four years before you can compete in conference tournaments,” she said. “When you have a group of kids working that hard with nothing to look forward to it’s disappointing. I don’t think it affected our recruiting because either a kid is going to come to your program or not.”

While Woodard admits the inability to compete following the regular season was frustrating for him as well as his players, he found himself modifying his motivational speeches to recruits.

“It was difficult because we couldn’t go anywhere after the regular season,” he said. “You couldn’t make the promises of the conference or tournament title. Once your regular season was over, it was just over.”

Jerome Starr, one of the team’s three seniors, said he’s happy with the team’s success on the season but he would have loved a shot at a tournament title.

“I’m happy and sad,” said Starr. “I am happy we have had such a good season, but I am mad that we are not able to do anything with it and that next year they will be able to do something with it. Hopefully, next year it will carry over. Hopefully, they will go undefeated.”

Starr’s wish has a chance of coming true with the Panthers losing him at the guard position along with forward/center Casey Jackson and guard Brian Johnson.

Walker-Samuels has the same vision for her women’s team that will return 10 players returning for the 2008-09 season.

“We will certainly attempt to repeat this season. The exciting part for us will be the chance of extending our season and giving our kids something to look forward to,” she said. “We work hard at what we do. We set goals prior to this season which were to win at least 20 games and lose five; we lost six games so we fell short in that department but next year we’re expecting our hard work to payoff throughout the regular season and during the conference tournament.”

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