BATON ROUGE — LSU Associate basketball coach Kermit Davis, Jr., turned in his resignation to LSU Athletic Department officials Friday as he accepted a new position as the head men’s basketball coach at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, Tenn.
Davis was introduced at a morning news conference at his new university.
“The hiring of Kermit Davis, Jr., as the head coach at Middle Tennessee State University will make (MTSU Athletic Director) Boots Donnelly look like a genius,” said LSU head coach John Brady.
Davis, a native of Leaksville, Miss., had been at LSU for five years. In that time the Tigers, while on NCAA probation, appeared in two postseason tournaments (the 2000 NCAA and the 2002 NIT). LSU won the Southeastern Conference Championship in 2000 and advanced to the NCAA Sweet 16 that season.
Davis’ coaching resume began in 1982 when he began two seasons as a graduate assistant on the Mississippi State staff. In 1984 he was named head coach at Southwest Mississippi Junior College and as the youngest junior college coach in the country (age 24), he compiled a two-season record of 39-20.
In 1986, he was named an assistant coach on Tim Floyd’s Idaho staff and Davis became the youngest head coach in Division I at age 28 in 1988 where his teams had back-to-back records of 25-6. In 1990 he was named head coach at Texas A&M where he was for one year before becoming Associate Head Coach at Chipola Junior College in Florida.
He would become head coach and athletic director at Chipola in 1993-94 before serving two seasons as Associate Head Coach at Utah State before being asked to return to Idaho where he served for one year before coming to LSU for the 1997-98 season.
“The first thing that most people who follow our program understand is that Kermit and I have been friends for almost 25 years,” said Brady. “That in itself says a lot about our relationship. Any time a friend and in this case a co-worker has a chance to be a head coach again, everybody’s happy for that.
“My relationship with Kermit has been special through the years. My relationship with his family, especially his father (Kermit Davis, Sr.) who I worked for as a graduate assistant is very special as is my relationship with Butch Pierre been special. I’ve talked about it every time I speak that the relationship that Kermit, Butch and I have through the years is unique in this business. The next guy on our staff to be a head coach will be Butch Pierre.
“It’s a happy, joyous time for Kermit and his family and it also says something positive about our program (at LSU). People around the country recognize what we’ve been through, how we dealt with it, how we handled the situation, how our players have improved, the successes we’ve been able to have with the circumstances we’ve been working under.
“We’re happy for him but rest assured of this. We will hire another good qualified coach who can recruit the players to come to LSU and fit the philosophy that we have here because it is a family and I will probably hire someone under the umbrella of the coaches that I work with or worked for because the main thing in this business is loyalty. You got to be good, but you’ve got to have loyalty within the ranks or your have nothing.”