Mercer introduces new head football coach as ‘man of integrity and character’

The Drew Cronic era at Mercer University is officially underway.

Cronic was officially introduced as the new Bears head football coach at a press conference on Friday.

Held at Heritage Hall inside the University Center, Athletic Director Jim Cole, deputy AD Sybil Blalock and Cronic addressed the crowd of fans and players.

Cole said that he and Blalock set out to hire someone that checked all their boxes Cronic, of Newnan, Georgia, was the one that fit them best.

“Work at an academic institution, head coach, a man of integrity and character, check,” Cole said. “Something that was big for me was to have someone from this area who had those connections.”

Cronic, the former Lenoir-Rhyne head coach, said he knew Mercer was a good fit for him.

He was even here for the team’s first game when the team was started in 2013 as an opposing coach on the Reinhardt staff.

The Bears won with a last-second field goal that day. It is something that has stuck with Cronic over the years.

“That first time I was in this stadium and saw the way that people cared about football here and knew it was going to be a great place,” Cronic said. “It was just something in the back of my mind. What a great place this would be to work here and to be here. This is my home state. This is coming back home for me.”

Cronic comes in after engineering a turnaround at Lenoir-Rhyne, a division two school. Lenoir-Rhyne had just three wins the season before he took over.

During his two seasons with the team, they went 25-3 with a pair of conference titles and two trips to the playoffs.

He is hopeful he can bring that kind of turnaround to Mercer who is coming off of a three-win season and has not won a conference title or made the playoffs since the program was restarted.

Cronic said he is appreciative of the foundation that former head coach Bobby Lamb left at the school. The pair worked together at Furman in the past.

“I am thankful for Bobby Lamb. He is a guy that I worked for and is a friend of mine,” Cronic said. “The foundation that he laid here, we are going to build off of that.”

Cronic’s expectations are to bring the Bears a Southern Conference title as soon as possible.

“I think Macon is a great city. This is a great academic institution. We have great facilities. The most important asset that we have is our people,” he said. “I want this football program to be the pride of this university, something that everybody can be proud of.”

This story was originally published December 20, 2019 at 6:44 PM.