What is BC getting in Earl Grant? Take it from the people who know.

In his hometown of North Charleston, S.C., Earl Grant raised the mahogany-trimmed Tom Yeager Trophy high above his head, having just guided the College of Charleston to the 2017-18 Colonial Athletic Association title, its first in six seasons in the conference.

Nineteen years earlier, in Savannah, G.A., Grant hoisted a different trophy. "I played Division II basketball," he said Tuesday, reflecting on his time as a player at Georgia College & State University just moments after being introduced as the 19th head basketball coach in Boston College history. "We worked our way up to the ACC, so nothing was given, nothing was handed out, no shortcuts, and you do things the right way."

Grant (Center, #5) was one of four players on the 1999-2000 Peach Belt Championship team who averaged double-digit points per game.

In two seasons at GCSU from 1998 to 2000, Grant averaged 12.3 points per game and paced the team in both assists and free throw percentage while helping to lead the Bobcats to a combined 49-11 record and a pair of Peach Belt Conference titles. Fellow Georgia College guard John Steensland, who graduated as the program's all-time leader in three-point field goals, remembers his backcourt-mate as "the glue that kept the team close."

"He's a fantastic guy, a rock-solid individual," said Steensland, who noted that, in large part thanks to Grant, several members of the team still check in weekly via a group text chain. "He was such a smart player and a very hard worker, which provided the basis for him, so I'm not surprised at all about him being an ACC coach."

Grant, Steensland said, was mere moments from enlisting in the Air Force when his college coach, Terry Sellers, called to offer him a Graduate Assistant spot, launching the coaching career that would wind from Rock Hill, S.C. to Wichita, K.S. on its way to Chestnut Hill, M.A.

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Mark Schmidt, Dennis Gates and John Thompson III all appeared to be more likely candidates to land the BC job. In fact, you'd be hard-pressed to find a published list of candidates with Grant's name on it, so it came as a surprise to most that the Eagles' search party, spearheaded by athletic director Pat Kraft, settled on the 44-year-old Charleston coach to fill its opening. Grant's reputation preceded him at Boston College, but concerns arose nonetheless. He's an effective recruiter but lacks ties to the northeast. He saw success at the College of Charleston but the competition in the CAA pales in comparison to the ACC.

JD Powell, who served under Grant in various roles for the entirety of his CoC career, isn't worried about his former boss. "Earl Grant is the best connector with people that I have ever met in my life," said Powell, who lived and worked with Grant at Charleston basketball camps during their college summers. "It doesn't matter if it's the president of Boston College or the 18-year-old recruit in the living room with his family; he can connect with anyone."

Powell coached under three different men making their Division I head coaching debut. "It's a whirlwind, and it can become very overwhelming as a first-time head coach, but that never happened with Earl Grant," he noted. "What you see from him is what you get. He's a very even-keeled, mild-mannered guy. I was just really blown away at how he handled the moment."

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Every college basketball coach learned from another. Bill Self and John Calipari are part of the Larry Brown coaching tree. Mick Cronin and Billy Donovan were Rick Pitino's assistants before making names for themselves as head coaches. Earl Grant is a disciple of Gregg Marshall. Long before Marshall resigned in November of 2020 following multiple allegations of verbal and physical abuse, he guided Winthrop to seven NCAA Tournament bids in nine seasons, the latter three of which came with Grant as part of his staff.

Grant (second from right) is part of the Marshall (third from left) coaching tree that's already produced three D1 head coaches.

"We won big at Winthrop," recalled Randy Peele, the former UNC Greensboro head man who played the role of lead assistant before becoming head coach when Marshall left for Wichita State. "Earl Grant hasn't lost," he said. "We had a really good team [at Winthrop.] Then he went to Wichita and got started on the initial groundwork there with Gregg Marshall. Then he went to Clemson, and he won at Clemson. Then he gets a head coaching job at Charleston, and he won there, in a program where the level of expectation is really high."

Peele, it turns out, is right. Since 2004, when he started at Winthrop, teams with Earl Grant on the coaching staff are 120 games over .500 and have suffered just three losing seasons.

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Grant's ability to build and maintain meaningful relationships was the one defining skill highlighted by each of his coaching peers that will help him succeed at BC. "First and foremost, he's a guy that values relationships," said Marty Gross, a Texas A&M Corpus Christi assistant and former colleague of Grant's at WSU. "Because he has such a strong relationship with these guys that he recruits, the people around him, and his coaches, he's going to be able to hold them accountable right away at Boston College."

"He has a way of making every person feel important," Powell said. "So it's not hard for young men and their parents to want to play for him. I think a big thing right now in the recruiting process is to make sure that your son goes and plays for somebody that you want him to be like. Earl Grant is someone who definitely fits that."

That ability to form strong relationships, combined with what Gross describes as "really good player development skills" helped Grant send a pair of players from Charleston to the NBA. One of those players, Jarell Brantley of the Utah Jazz, said of his former coach, "he has the type of grit and hunger that is contagious with his players."

Joe Chealy, “His work ethic and his genuineness will set him apart and give him a chance to succeed in the ACC. Players will want to get better and play hard for him. That’s a dangerous combination when dealing with a talented, unselfish group of guys.”

"On the first day of conditioning my freshman year," Brantley recalled, "he led the pack in our mile run through the city. I knew then, I'd run through a wall for him."

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From the very start of Grant's basketball journey in central Georgia to the bright lights of the Atlantic Coast Conference, his teammates, players, and coaches have picked up on the same trends; work ethic and relationship-building. "I know he'll be fine," said Clemson head coach Brad Brownell, Grant's superior from his previous ACC stint. "[Boston College] is getting a great leader of men."

"They'll love him up there in Boston," Gross said.