USCB basketball head coach charged with DUI, school says matter is ‘private’
The University of South Carolina Beaufort’s head basketball coach will keep his position after his arrest earlier this month for alleged driving under the influence, according to a school official.
The head coach, 33-year-old Ronald Stanley Fudala Jr. of Bluffton, was pulled over and jailed the night of Aug. 12 on Hilton Head Island. Another driver had alerted police about the coach’s Acura “swaying back and forth in its lane” on U.S. 278 in the Shelter Cove area, according to an incident report from the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office.
USCB officials were aware of Fudala’s arrest, university spokesperson Carol Weir said on Friday. She called the situation a “private matter” but confirmed Fudala remained employed as the school’s head basketball coach.
During the Aug. 12 traffic stop, Fudala told a deputy he had “four IPAs” at the Local Legend Brewing Company on south-end Hilton Head, the report says. Asked to estimate his level of impairment on a scale from one to ten, the coach answered “five.”
After being handcuffed and driven to the sheriff’s Hilton Head substation nearby, Fudala reportedly declined to submit to a breathalyzer test. Such a refusal results in an automatic 90-day suspension of driving privileges under South Carolina law.
Fudala deferred questions to his lawyer, who declined to comment on the case Friday afternoon. The coach’s first court appearance is scheduled for Sept. 1, according to Beaufort County judicial records.
Growth of USCB’s new basketball program
Fudala became the USCB’s first-ever men’s basketball coach upon his hiring in fall 2022. He was previously an associate coach at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, boasting a number of regular-season championships and a trip to the 2022 NCAA Division II Final Four.
During the team’s first season starting in 2023, Fudala led the Sand Sharks to a record of 10 wins and 16 losses. They went on to earn a winning record in the 2024-25 season — 21 wins and 10 losses — and advanced to the championship round of the 2025 Peach Belt Conference Tournament, ultimately losing by a 16-point margin to USC Aiken.
The 2025-26 academic year begins the first year of NCAA Division II membership across USCB’s sports teams, allowing more opportunities for athletic scholarships and postseason competition. The school had competed since 2007 under the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics before joining the Peach Belt Conference as a provisional NCAA member in 2022.
The USCB men’s basketball team will start this year’s season Nov. 14 with an away game against Francis Marion University in Florence, S.C.
This story was originally published August 22, 2025 at 4:27 PM.
