Though coaching different sports, Glad Bugariu and Doug Robertson have plenty in common.

Both arrived at South Carolina State University from successful coaching stints at NCAA Division II programs. Bugariu led the Belmont Abbey College women’s soccer team to back-to-back conference titles while Robertson posted 100 victories in five basketball seasons at Bowie State.

Each also had a moment in their careers when they looked at the respective programs at S.C. State and were attracted by an opportunity to vastly improve the product.

“I really think there’s potential here,” Bugariu said. “There’s always potential here. We have scholarship money. The budget’s okay, there’s potential. In that respect, there are certain things that appealed to me.”

Now that Bugariu and Robertson have that chance as two of four new women’s coaches hired since March, both men can be found either on the road or engaged in telephone conversation with contacts regarding potential recruits.

Before leaving for Virginia Beach, Va., to scout recruits, Bugariu was tied to his cellphone answering calls from his national contentions. Robertson has kept an even lower profile around campus as he and his assistant coaches sweep the country for new talent.

In their own way, each coach is committed to changing a losing culture that has plagued most of the women’s programs at S.C. State the past three years.

“I’m coming from the northern section of the conference (a former assistant coach at Delaware State) and I’m just trying to change the mind set, the mentality a little bit to improve upon what’s already here,” said Robertson upon accepting the job at S.C. State. “There’s some decent players here. I just think we need to add a couple of pieces in terms of intensity and toughness and we should be okay. I feel great.”

“The perception I think is, ‘Get S.C. State on the schedule and you’ll win,’” Bugariu said. “We want to be able to at least, regardless of our record, (be) in every game. Number two, they changed the playoff format a little bit for our conference and only the top four go through, so we’d like to be in the top four ... and that will be the first time in school history we’ve qualified for the semifinals of the conference tournament.

“The most games ever won there is six games. We’d like to get to seven wins.”

With exception to women’s tennis and some individual success in women’s track and field, winning has been a problem for most of S.C. State’s sports the past three years. Out of the other team sports - basketball, soccer, softball, bowling and volleyball - only one has posted a winning record since 2005 (SEE CHART) and have each had more than one coaching change during that span.

On websites devoted to S.C. State and the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference, many have cast blame on the lack of success in women’s sports on S.C. State Athletics Director Charlene Johnson, a member of the 1979 Lady Bulldogs’ basketball team that won the AIAW national championship. Since Johnson was reappointed AD in 2005, none of the head coaches she’s hired has posted a winning record.

Nevertheless, she reaffirmed her commitment to seeing the athletics program return to what she believes is its rightful place atop the MEAC.

“When it’s time to make a change, I don’t think I have not done what I needed to do when it comes to making changes,” Johnson said. “We have a lot of new people.”

Bugariu would want nothing more than to, in his words, “start the revolution” in turning around a program without a winning tradition. In fact, the Lady Bulldogs have averaged close to three wins a season since since its inception in 2000.

Among the most glaring deficiencies Bugariu looked to address was a lack of aggressiveness in recruiting. He believes the previous coaches failed to expand the scope of the recruiting universe nationally, thus limiting the opportunities of acquiring quality Division I talent.

“You have to go out on a national level,” he said. “So we’re focusing on continuing on knowing everything there is in South Carolina because we’re a public school. At the same time, we’re really expanding our efforts out west, out north and international. So we think that by expanding the net a little bit, casting out a bigger net, we’ll going to bring in bigger fish.”

Robertson has also taken a “big net” approach to recruiting. He most recently snagged prospects from states usually not recruited heavily in the past by S.C. State, such as Michigan and Texas, and hired an assistant coach, La’Netta Dillard, with California ties.

Bugariu acknowledge the tennis program under head coach Hardeep Judge is a model for success in non-revenue sports. Using his connections, both domestically and internationally, Judge has created one of the MEAC’s most diverse programs responsible for the school’s lone post-season appearances the past five years.

With the added exposure gained from individual players earning national rankings, Judge has seen a gradual upgrade in his recruits.

“We’ve really come a long way, but...with the freshman class this year and the people we recruited, we’ve recruited some players that could have played at Georgia or anywhere for next year that are going to play with us and I just feel that the direction that the men are going in and the recruits we’re starting to get for the women, we’re finally able to recruit at a (University of North Carolina) level,” said Judge prior to the team’s appearance in the NCAA Tournament in May.

It’s a winning formula Bugariu hopes to duplicate.

“If I come here and I do well, I’m going to really take this program into national prominence,” Bugariu said. “Because people are going to look at a HBCU that’s successful in soccer, because there are not that many.”

Overcoming the lack of success in soccer has made recruiting “a challenge,” Bugariu said. For that to happen, the team must start putting out winning seasons and signing more quality talent. To that end, Bugariu plans to sign as many as 16 players for next season.

If he’s successful, this will give credence to Johnson’s belief that a revival of S.C. State athletics is right around the corner.

“I’m a winner,” Johnson said. “S.C. State has afforded me the opportunity not only to play as a student-athlete and be very successful, winning the championship in 1979 on the basketball team, but also given me the opportunity to sit here. I don’t just sit here. I want to be productive and I think we’re in a position right now where this is a turning point for everybody.”

T&D Senior Sports Writer Thomas Grant Jr. can be reached by e-mail at tgrant@timesanddemocrat.com or by phone at 803-533-5547. Discuss this and other stories on-line at TheTandD.com.

LADY BULLDOGS SING THE BLUES

(Since 2004, the S.C. State women’s sports programs have managed just one winning season outside of women’s tennis):

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

2004-05: 10-19

2005-06: 13-15

2006-07: 7-22

2007-08: 13-17

SOCCER

2004-05: 2-12

2005-06: 3-13

2006-07: 3-13

2007-08: 2-14

SOFTBALL

2004-05: 12-35

2005-06: 8-35

2006-07: 6-41

2007-08: 9-24

VOLLEYBALL

*2004-05: 18-13

2005-06: 8-21

2006-07: 12-20

2007-08: 8-23

BOWLING

2007-08: 7-23

* - winning season

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