By: Will Harper, Contributing Writer
With a new season underway, there is a lot that the Terriers look to prove this year on the court. Will the men be in the tournament again? What will the women do with a new coach? But one question is added into the mix this year: what will the Terriers do in their last year playing in the Benjamin Johnson Arena?
The men are coming off a season where the Terriers went 11-2, despite only finishing 15-17. The men, who were predicted to finish third in the Southern Conference, obviously hope to fare better this year. Coach Mike Young has been in the Benjamin Johnson Arena (BenJo) as a coach for 27 of its 35 years, fourteen of those as the head coach. As he enters his final year in the arena, what he will remember the court for is the feeling and experience it provided.
“In terms of the fan experience, the student experience and the student athlete experience, it’s been an awesome on-campus facility,” he says. “I will savor each day that we have left in there before moving on to the Richardson Indoor Stadium.”
For his last year in the arena, he doesn’t have anything special planned. “My goals never change. My goal since the day I started coaching wasn’t number of wins, wasn’t about cutting down nets, wasn’t about anything other than every player having a great experience and this team becoming as good as they can be,” says Young. “If this team becomes as good as they can be, we have a chance to win a lot of games and have a very memorable year.”
The women’s team and new head coach Jimmy Garrity have a very different situation than the men. The women went 9-20 last year, but, like the men, play significantly better in BenJo, finishing the season 8-6 there. In the meantime, Garrity guided his team at Anderson University to a 23-7 season, which included a win over Clemson. Despite having never experienced a game in BenJo as a home coach, he still has a pretty good idea of what that court means to the team, and to the campus as a whole.
“It’s special to be part of that history. I know that BenJo is a historic arena in this region of the country and the state,” he says. “There have been many big-time games played there, and many big-time wins. Just to be a part of the ceremonies and excitement around this last year is going to special for me as a coach.”
Garrity’s goal for this season isn’t a certain number of wins, but rather improvement. “To be honest, we’re taking over a program where we just want to improve every day. At the end of the year, if we individually improve and really come together as a team, then the wins and losses will take care of themselves,” he says.
With 25 games between the two teams slated to be played on the BenJo hardwood this year, both squads look to put up great seasons in the historic arena, which saw the first Terrier win all the way back on Jan. 26, 1981 when the Terriers squeaked out 76-72 against Newberry College. No one knows when the last win in BenJo will come, but we all hope that it will come against Western Carolina University on Feb. 28, 2017, when the final home game of the men’s season is played.
