BASEBALL PREVIEW: Guest column from ESPN analyst Will Kimmey

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Tigers back on top in SEC, college baseball

Special to Tiger Rag

The defining characteristics of a perennially dominant sports program are storied traditions, a history of success and championships and an intensely passionate fan base.

In the Southeastern Conference, think of Alabama in football or Kentucky in basketball. In baseball, it’s unquestionably LSU, which won its sixth national title in 2009.

However, that same combination of tradition, past success and passionate fans can also produce suffocating expectations. Here’s where we cue program builder Skip Bertman’s 2002 handoff to Smoke Laval. Laval led LSU to the College World Series in his second and third seasons but went 0-for-2 each time, and the pressure mounted.
Despite a 40-22 record in 2005, there were cries for Laval’s ouster. He wasn’t meeting the extremely high expectation level set by Bertman.

That year, Carl Dubois made an interesting point about the Intimidator billboard in right field at Alex Box Stadium. He noted that its boasting of the program’s five national titles from 1991-2000 once intimidated opponents but was starting to intimidate LSU players because of the pressure to maintain that level. Attendance dropped in 2006 as LSU missed the NCAA tournament for the first time in 18 years.

Bertman, the man who built the program into a powerhouse, was now the athletics director and had to make another program-altering decision: He fired Laval, the man he handpicked as his successor. Rumors of Bertman’s next choice circulated, as did the idea that some coaches were afraid of a job that, like Alabama football or Kentucky basketball, came with great pressure and the pressure-cooker of the SEC baseball schedule.

Some Tigers fans found Paul Mainieri a curious choice. But his resume spoke for itself. Mainieri led Notre Dame to Omaha in 2002 despite the weather and scheduling handicaps associated with being in the North.

Midway through the 2008 season, LSU was 23-16-1, 6-11-1 in the SEC, and the same whispers that led to Laval’s downfall started percolating about Mainieri. USA Baseball national teams director Eric Campbell, who coached with Mainieri at Air Force, worried that LSU might send his friend Mainieri packing after just two seasons. And Campbell warned this would be a mistake.

Mainieri didn’t falter. He stuck with his rebuilding plan, and LSU won 23 straight games from that point on. The Tigers swept through the regional, defeated UC Irvine in three games to win the super regional and close down the old Alex Box with a trip to Omaha.

It got better a year later, when Mainieri’s Tigers basically went wire-to-wire as No. 1 and won the national title. It wasn’t as easy as it seemed, as Mainieri had to prove his coaching mettle with a midseason defensive switch that reshuffled the positions of five players and by holding out ace Anthony Ranaudo until game three of the CWS championship series.

Count Mainieri’s hiring as one last masterstroke by Bertman, who not only knew when to pull the plug on Laval, but also which man could stop the LSU’s success from draining away. Credit Mainieri for taking the reins and doing things his way, with pitching and defense and athleticism, rather than feeling the pressure for a return to Gorilla Ball.

LSU’s back on top again, and that history and tradition and fan support are filling the new Alex Box Stadium and drawing top recruits. The Intimidator billboard, absent from the new yard in 2009, should be back in its rightful place for 2010 bearing another national title notch. It will go back to Intimidating opponents as well.

Will Kimmey, a former national writer for Baseball America’s coverage of college baseball, is a regular ESPN analyst for the “Road to Omaha” selection show each May and for the network’s in-studio coverage of the super regionals. He writes for Carolina Blue, a magazine devoted to North Carolina Tar Heels athletics.

Read more from the 2010 Baseball Preview:

FALL IN REVIEW: Tigers worked through, around injuries

HOME RUN HIRE: Bertman reached way back for a coach for the future

MAINIERI PROFILE: Year 3 continued amazing run

DUBOIS COLUMN: Turning the page fun for us, essential for Tigers