Following the tragic and sudden passing of former head coach Anthony Stewart last week, the Tennessee-Martin program will move forward in 2020-21 with Montez Robinson as its interim leader.
“Coach Stewart was a close friend, good man and outstanding coach,” Robinson said in a statement. “So, with mixed emotions, it is an honor to be chosen to lead the program that Coach Stewart has been building for more than six years. The staff and I plan to continue working together, giving 110-percent effort on and off the court, to make Coach Stewart and the UT Martin community proud of this program. Our staff and student-athletes look forward to getting back to the court in Coach Stewart’s memory. During this time, let’s continue to keep the Stewart family, our players and the UT Martin community lifted in prayer.”
Robinson joined the coaching staff in September to be one of Stewart’s assistants, but the new guy arguably has the best resume in-house to be interim head coach. He spent the previous five seasons (2015-20) as the head coach at Alcorn State, going 50-40 overall in SWAC play and winning SWAC Coach of the Year honors in 2017.
“We will be leaning heavily on all of our staff members to carry us through this challenging time,” AD Kurt McGuffin said. “At this point in the season, it made sense to hire internally and we are very fortunate to already have a high-quality candidate on staff like Montez, who brings five years of Division I head coaching experience to the table. After enduring an extremely difficult offseason, we look forward to getting the season underway.”
credit to Tennessee-Martin Athletics for the image
