It’s been a busy couple of weeks for newly hired USC men’s basketball coach Lamont Paris. In addition to making the rounds with the USC women’s team during its national championship run, Paris has also been putting the pieces in place on his first coaching staff with the Gamecocks. After announcing the hiring of former Gamecock guard Carey Rich and bringing in two assistants from Chattanooga, the 47-year old is now pounding in the nuts and bolts to his bench.
On Wednesday, Paris announced the addition of three support staff members, while retaining two from Frank Martin’s staff at USC. David McKinley has been hired as Director of Player Development, Colby Arendale as Director of Basketball Operations and Roman DiPasquale as Video Coordinator. All three come to Columbia from Chattanooga with Paris. Scott Greenawalt, who has been at USC the past ten seasons, has been retained as strength and conditioning coach. Meanwhile, Mark Rodger remains in his role as men’s basketball athletic trainer, a position he’s held with the Gamecocks for the past 16 seasons.
From the USC Media Release:
McKinley played collegiately at Ohio University where he was a four-year letterwinner from 2010-13. He was a team captain his last two seasons and was a member of the 2012 Bobcats squad that won a school record 29 games. The team advanced to the Sweet 16 before falling in overtime to North Carolina.
After graduation, McKinley served as a graduate assistant at Ohio from 2014-16. He then worked as video coordinator at Wright State for one season in 2016-17. He was assistant to the head coach in Paris’ first season at Chattanooga in 2017-18. McKinley then served as director of operations in 2018-19 before being promoted to assistant coach the past three seasons. A native of Dublin, Ohio, McKinley has undergraduate (’13) and graduate degrees (’16) from Ohio.
“David is a very good young coach with a lot of energy and enthusiasm for the game of basketball,” said Paris. “He has excelled in a variety of roles in this profession, and I’m excited to have him continue that in his new role at South Carolina.”
Arendale has served as director of operations for Chattanooga the past three seasons (2019-22). In that role, he served as the point person for travel and managed every organizational need for the program. Arendale was a student manager for the Mocs in 2017-18 and then served as a graduate manager from 2018-19. A native of Chattanooga, Tenn. and a 2018 graduate of UTC, Arendale is currently working on his MBA.
“I hired Colby in Chattanooga as one of the youngest directors of operations in Division I basketball after working his way up from manager then graduate assistant,” said Paris. “His organizational skills combined with his ‘get ‘er done’ mentality make him an incredible asset to our program.”
Like McKinley, DiPasquale has worked for Paris from day one at Chattanooga. He has been the assistant to the head coach the last three seasons for the Mocs (2019-22) following a two-year stint as video coordinator (2017-19).
Prior to his time at Chattanooga, DisPasquale was the video coordinator at Stanford (2014-16). He worked at Portland for a season (2013-14) and also served as an assistant video coordinator with the Philadelphia 76ers (2011-12). He’s a native of Rockford, Ill., and graduated from Wisconsin in 2011.
“I’ve known Roman since he was a manager in our days back in Madison,” said Paris. “He is incredibly knowledgeable and has a high capacity to learn in order to keep up with the ever-changing technology in his field.”
He has a staff , now where are the players?