COLUMBIA, S.C. — In 1978, South Carolina athletics director Jim Carlen who was also the head football coach was looking for someone to start up a men’s soccer program. Carlen eventually hired a coach who had been an assistant at The Citadel in 1976 before taking over the program in 1977.
Mark Berson would come to Columbia and he is still around.
Berson has spent 43 years as the head coach of the men’s soccer team and tomorrow afternoon will mark his final match as the Gamecocks will host Kentucky at Stone Stadium.
The winningest active coach in the country, Berson has led the Gamecocks to 22 NCAA Tournaments and 35 winning seasons in his tenure.
While in Columbia, Berson has coached 13 All-Americans and 15 Freshman All-Americans. Since 2005, Berson’s student-athletes have garnered 79 All-Region honors and 59 All-Conference USA honors.
Heading into Saturday’s season finale, Berson has accumulated 522 wins in his career, 511 of which have come at South Carolina.
The facilities are light years ahead of where they were when Berson first started the program. The home field was affectionately known as “The Graveyard” given the proximity to an actual graveyard. The venue became known as Stone Stadium in 1996 and was made possible by a $1 million gift given by the late Eugene E. Stone III. Stone, who passed away in 1997 and was a Carolina graduate and Chairman of Stone Manufacturing Co. Inc., the parent company of UMBRO International. The surface of Stone Stadium was completely replaced during the summer of 2009. A state-of-the-art irrigation system was installed, along with new sod for the entire field surface.
In 2016, the Gamecock Soccer Complex came online. It is an 11,000-square-foot facility that houses individual team locker rooms, lounges and study rooms, athletic training therapy tubs, a 3,000-square-foot weight room, a cleat room and a film room.
So, after watching the program and facilities improve over time, Berson will leave the program which he built from the ground up, but he will not leave the game. He says he could see himself working for USA Soccer on a limited scale as he will still engaged in the sport.
Gamecock Soccer Complex
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