Pat Kelsey makes first public comments since departure and return to Winthrop
Even after a tumultuous couple of weeks Pat Kelsey hadn’t lost his humor.
Winthrop’s basketball coach spoke at the Boy Scouts Palmetto Council Distinguished Citizen dinner March 30 - a week after taking the head coaching job at UMass for two days before changing his mind and returning to Winthrop.
The school’s athletic department posted a video clip of the speech given at Winthrop Coliseum. Kelsey opened with a joking nod to the whirlwind of events.
“In my business, results of my profession play out in the front of page of the newspaper, whether we win or lose. Some of you go to work on a daily basis and whether you get a sale or don’t get a sale it doesn’t show up on the front page of The Herald,” he told the crowd gathered at Winthrop Coliseum.
“After six or seven months of sort of dealing with that, and that final buzzer sounded and I was obviously disappointed, it was really nice to kind of step back and to really keep a low profile over the last week or so...”
- Laughter bubbled up from the crowd -
“... stay out of the front page of the newspaper, stay away from my name being in social media. It’s just been so refreshing to have that be the case here the last week or so.”
Kelsey, who led Winthrop to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in seven years last month, then said he was being tongue in cheek.
Before emceeing the dinner he used the opportunity to address his decision to return to Winthrop, which in an era of ever increasing public skepticism - especially regarding college sports - raised eyebrows. Whether that was fair or not is debatable but the reaction happened in large part because Kelsey would have nearly quadrupled his salary at UMass, which competes in a better, higher profile conference than Winthrop, the Atlantic 10.
Kelsey has been busy regenerating the momentum his program had following a Big South championship and NCAA tourney appearance. Freshman Patrick Fisher and redshirt junior Duby Okeke announced they would transfer, though Fisher’s mind was made up before Kelsey’s brief move to UMass and Okeke hasn’t spoken publicly about his reasons for transferring.
Winthrop landed another talented recruit from Australia this week, Kyle Zunic, and is busy on the recruiting trail looking for three more players to round out next season’s roster, which will look markedly different. In other words, it’s business as usual at Winthrop Coliseum in the basketball department, almost as if nothing unusual happened.
“I would ask you to allow me to say this to you and to know this is coming from deep down in my gut and deep, deep from within my heart. My family and I love Rock Hill, South Carolina,” Kelsey said on March 30, to more applause from the crowd. “We love Winthrop, and I’m very, very lucky to be your head coach. Sometimes you don’t realize what you have until it’s gone.
“I’m a big believer in not delaying gratitude, so to every Rock Hill citizen here tonight, thank you very much for welcoming me and my family back to this wonderful, wonderful place.”
Watch the whole video here:
This story was originally published April 11, 2017 at 11:19 AM with the headline "Pat Kelsey makes first public comments since departure and return to Winthrop."