When Matt Lynch was hired to lead a wayward junior college basketball program in rural South Carolina, there was uncertainty over whether he would even be able to field a team. The University of South Carolina Salkehatchie had no players, no budget and no running water in the locker room.
But fast forward 15 months, and the revamped Indians didn’t just play their first season since the 2021-22 campaign.
They won their conference tournament!
How about we take this to the next level?
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USC Salkehatchie, or “Salk” for short, won the Region 10 tournament in NJCAA Division 1 over the weekend with a 69-59 victory over top-seeded Caldwell Tech in Hickory, N.C. With the win, Salkehatchie’s Cinderella run will continue. The school will play in the Division 1 junior college championship later this month in Hutchinson, Kansas.
It’s a triumph that Lynch never could’ve imagined when he was hired in December 2022, and tasked with rebuilding the program from scratch.
“All season long we have talked about getting to Kansas and this weekend we lived up to those words. I am so proud of our guys and I am so thankful for my staff,” Lynch told Outsports. “What we have done over the course of this season can never be taken away from us, and we aren’t done yet.”
Matt Lynch took over one of the worst programs in the country (had shut down the year before). Had to recruit an entire team.
His USC Salk squad just KO’d #1 seed Caldwell (28-4) to win the region and advance to the NJCAA D1 tourney!… https://t.co/u8xHGSOgkm— Adam Nelson (@HD_DirtKing) March 16, 2024
Extremely proud of this team and the remarkable things they have done this season. @Lynch5_ you are one hell of a coach. This is only the beginning for you in your journey through life! https://t.co/uWoENHvuOW— David McMillen III (@DavidMcMillen55) March 16, 2024
Outstanding! What a great story you all are. Dedicated coach, awesome players. Good luck in the tournament!— George Biagi (@hoyageorge) March 18, 2024
Lynch is certainly riding the wave. The only out gay head coach in men’s college basketball, the 33-year-old was profiled recently in the New York Times. The inspiring story chronicles how Lynch scoured the globe to field one of the most diverse rosters in college hoops, watching endless hours of film and making impassioned recruiting pitches.
His hard work paid off. The Indians feature five players from Australia, four from South Carolina, two from England, one from Germany, one from Costa Rica and one from Virginia. They all live together in a seven-bedroom apartment a mile from campus, becoming a family in the process.
“If I was going to get a head coaching job, I knew it was going to be at a place that needed to be built,” Lynch told the NYT. “All I ever wanted was an opportunity. The way I looked at it was this may be a bad job, but it’s my bad job. You’ve got to make the big time where you are.”
Lynch received his first break in 2017, when he joined North Carolina Wilmington as a video coordinator. He lasted in the idyllic college town for three seasons, departing the school in early 2020, right before the world shut down.
Locked down and without a job, Lynch started to reflect on his life. With a proclivity to bury his personal feelings and focus on work, he engaged in true introspection. Though Lynch’s family knew he was gay, few others did.
When Lynch took over at the University of South Carolina Salkehatchie, the junior college had no players or budget.
That changed in April 2020, when he penned his coming out essay. The piece went viral, prompting Lynch to appear on The Tamron Hall Show and be featured on Forbes‘ “30 under 30.”
With a dearth of out gay role models in men’s sports, Lynch said he was determined to serve as an example.
“I think it’s important for me to be publicly out,” he wrote. “Not only for me and my mental health, but for anyone else out there like me.”
Salkehatchie’s conference tournament run was sweet, as the Indians defeated the Nos. 1 and 2 seeds. His family was in attendance for all three games, including his mom and brother, who’s a coach himself.
They are a tight knit grew, though there was a noticeable empty seat. Lynch’s father passed away in late 2020, six months after he had publicly come out.
“Bill accepted Matt and loved him, but it was hard for him — he thought it was a phase,” Matt’s mother, Irma, told the NYT. “The last week of his life, Matt would visit in the hospital and Bill would say, ‘Are you sure you’re gay? There’s a really pretty nurse here,’ and Matt would shoot it down.”
When Lynch came out to his players last summer, he wasn’t sure what to expect. For the longest time, he thought being gay and coaching men’s basketball were incongruous.
But now, Lynch is no longer harboring those fears. His players reacted to his announcement with acceptance, and the topic has seldom come up since.
Even in conservative Waterboro (population 5,544), Lynch says there hasn’t been any episodes.
“The truth of it is there hasn’t been one incident with malicious intent,” he said.
It helps that his players respect him, and buy into his philosophy of self-sacrifice.
“He’s not afraid to open himself up to us, which is a big positive,” said Darcy Pares, a guard from Australia. “We might not like him some days at practice, we might not like him when he wakes us up early to go to the weight room, but we know he’s doing it because he really cares about us.”
There’s little doubt that Lynch takes his position seriously. In addition to coaching and recruiting, he renovated the entire locker room, with the help of his mom and sister. He estimates he spent up to $4,000 out of his own pocket preparing for the season.
The Indians now have a fresh carpet, new paint and improved leather sofa. But most importantly, they also have a winning team.
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