Two coaches, one offseason: Meet the new Mercer basketball coaches

Mercer University has been busy this offseason.

The school’s athletics have surged thanks to the recent success of its football program, and it already had to hire a new coach for the gridiron after Drew Cronic left to become offensive coordinator at Navy.

Then, just as spring began turning into summer, an unexpected and uncommon predicament — the Bears needed to hire two coaches simultaneously for the women’s and men’s basketball programs.

Finding one coach is difficult enough. Replacing two departing skippers, one of whom, Susie Gardner, spent almost 15 years leading the women’s team, is another challenge altogether.

“It was an intense period,” Mercer Athletic Director Jim Cole said at an April press conference after the coaches were hired. “We were doing two searches at the same time, and that is not easy.”

The hiring committee helmed by athletic director Jim Cole and COO Sybil Blalock wasted no time. After the Southern Conference hoops tournaments wrapped up in mid-March, Mercer looked for its new leaders.

“We knew that we wanted to run a national search, looking for coaches for a new era,” Blalock said. “We had a lot of passionate conversations about what would satisfy and what would fit Mercer University.”

It did not take long for the Bears to find the new coaches. Mercer University announced Ryan Ridder as the new men’s basketball coach in a March 17 post, hardly a week after former coach Greg Gary’s contract expired.

“I think Coach Gary was not renewed that Monday (after the season ended), the search team talked to me on Tuesday, and by Friday, both parties felt like this was a really good situation,” Ridder said. “I flew out there on Saturday, and then here we are.”

Susie Gardner’s successor as women’s coach, Michelle Clark-Heard, was announced May 21. Each coach signifies the beginning of a new era, but they’ll have the same goals.

“We want to win conference championships and we want to be part of the NCAA championship,” Blalock said.

Success at every stop

The 39-year-old head honcho comes to Mercer on the heels of successful coaching tenures with Daytona State, a junior college, along with Bethune-Cookman and UT Martin.

At Daytona State, Ridder finished first in the conference every year from 2013 to 2016.

“But more importantly, we graduated 96% of our student athletes,” Ridder said. “I think when you talk about junior college basketball, sometimes there’s a perception… what we did is we changed it and we made it better.”

Ridder then guided Bethune-Cookman to three consecutive winning records in conference play from the 2017 to 2019 seasons while maintaining respectable overall season marks.

Bethune-Cookman’s out-of-conference opponents during that span included Power 5 foes like Washington and Georgia Tech, as well as mid-major juggernauts like DePaul and San Diego State.

“In 37 years as a Division I institution, they had one conference championship,” Ridder said. “We were there three years, and won a championship in our first year there… but more importantly, built some relationships that will last long after basketball.”

After those two stops, Ridder arrived at UT Martin. The head coach turned an 8-22 team in 2021 into a 21-11 team that won the conference championship in the 2023-24 campaign. He set a record by winning 40 games in two seasons, the most for a coach there in a two-year period.

Ridder’s work did not go unnoticed. The solid play, which came despite often acting as a punching bag for bigger programs, garnered Ridder some acclaim, including a spot on ESPN’s college basketball “40 Under 40” in 2020, where he was placed in the 31st spot on the list.

The coach commented on Mercer’s history, including their often-touted win over Duke in the 2014 NCAA Tournament, and the expectations that come with it at his latest stop.

“I think you embrace it, I think you wanna compete at the top… the Southern Conference is one of the best mid-major conferences in college basketball, you have to embrace the pressure,” Ridder said of the expectations for upsets in Mercer’s conference. “I love that people remember that, and that’s what people want this place to be.”

Ridder replaces Greg Gary at Mercer, who coached from 2019 to the 2023-34 season.

Gary’s stretch for the Bears had its highlights, including a surprise run to the conference title game as a No. 7 seed in 2021, but it ultimately fell short of the high watermark set by his predecessor, Duke-upset architect Bob Hoffman. Mercer opted not to renew Gary’s contract after the Bears went 15-16 in the 2023-24 regular season.

A coach with connections

Michelle Clark-Heard, the school’s new women’s head coach, has her own big shoes to fill. Her predecessor Gardner coached the Bears for almost 15 years and guided the team to nine conference titles and a 247-189 record overall.

Heard has her own reputation, though. Blalock said Heard’s name came up repeatedly as they searched for a successor to Gardner. Lauded South Carolina head coach Dawn Staley even endorsed Heard on Twitter after Mercer announced the hire.

“(Gardner and her players) have built this program up. You can look at the banners here and tell there’s a rich tradition here, we’ve enjoyed it… And Coach Heard’s name came up as the perfect person to appreciate that tradition and be able to continue to develop where we are,” Blalock said.

Heard excelled as a player at Western Kentucky and won two conference titles there as a coach. She said her first championship left a major imprint on her and gave her the experience to develop a coaching style around defense.

Heard also brings lots of experience in larger conferences. She was an assistant coach at Louisville from 2007 to 2012 when the team made the NCAA Tournament multiple times, including the Final Four in 2009. After leading Western Kentucky from 2012 to 2018, Heard took the helm at Cincinnati until 2022.

She comes to Mercer off of a stint as an assistant coach and assistant athletic director with Mississippi State, a gig she said introduced her to the South in a big way.

“Seeing that SEC basketball up close, it is really something,” she said. “Being able to be in Starkville and be in the South, I really understood it, and I like it. And my husband is from the South… it’s been good.”

Heard’s emotions and connections with her players will also play a big role in her coaching. She shed a tear at the April press conference while talking about her new job.

“My husband said before this, ‘Now don’t you get up there and cry,’” Heard joked. “But I’m just so grateful for another opportunity, and a place like this that has a winning culture.”

Heard talked about how she’s a “relationship coach,” and wants to focus on building up her players, knowing them and influencing them beyond the game of basketball.

“I want these women to know Coach Heard on the basketball court and off of it, because it can be different,” she said. “I want them to grow as people and have real relationships with me and my staff.”