GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor
Paul Mainieri’s first Southeastern Conference series as LSU’s coach in 2007 was at South Carolina. He lost, 5-0, and would lose two of the three games. He went on to finish 29-26-1 and 12-17-1 in the SEC after inheriting a 35-24 and 13-17 team at LSU.
Mainieri’s next SEC series as South Carolina’s first-year coach starts on Thursday (6 p.m. central, SEC Network) as his Gamecocks (27-26, 5-22 SEC) host No. 1 LSU (40-12, 17-10 SEC) to close the regular season. If he wins one, it will be considered a major upset.
Interestingly, the program Mainieri inherited at LSU was strikingly similar to the one he took over at South Carolina, which was 37-26 last season and 13-17 in the SEC.
In between 2007 and his retirement at LSU after the 2021 season, Mainieri won a national championship in 2009, and his Tigers played in the national championship series in 2017. In all, he reached the College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska, five times. Mainieri won the SEC regular season four times and the SEC Tournament six times. He received three national coach of the year awards and two SEC coach of the year honors. And he became member of the American Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame and the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame.
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But Mainieri, 67, is struggling now. South Carolina had to score five runs in the ninth Tuesday night to beat Winthrop, 6-5, to break a six-game losing streak. Visiting Florida swept the Gamecocks two weekends ago, including a 22-3 win, and South Carolina lost three over the weekend at Auburn, including 24-2 and 11-3 losses.
The Gamecocks are having their worst baseball season since 2019 when coach Mark Kingston finished 28-28 overall and 8-22 in the SEC in his second season.
“Good to be back talking to people in Baton Rouge,” Mainieri said on Tiger Rag Radio Tuesday night before his game. “Doing great, really. The season hasn’t gone so well, especially in SEC play. But I’ve enjoyed being back on a field working with players and being part of the game again. So looking forward to seeing a lot of friends this weekend.”
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Mainieri retired from LSU after reaching a Super Regional at Tennessee in 2021 despite dealing with serious back and neck issues all season that required multiple surgeries and about a year before he got better. But he helped LSU athletic director Scott Woodward in his search for a new coach that ended up being Arizona’s Jay Johnson in the summer of ’21.
Before long, Mainieri was playing golf again and entertaining consideration to return to coaching at Notre Dame and at Miami before deciding on South Carolina.
“I think it’s cool,” Johnson said of meeting Mainieri on Tuesday. “When coach decided to go to South Carolina, if anybody’s earned a right to do what they want to do and continue to coach, it’s him. It’ll be good to see him.”
Mainieri has won 1,531 games in his coaching career that began at St. Thomas in Miami in 1983 with stops at the Air Force and Notre Dame before LSU.
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“He’s a great recruiter,” said Johnson, whose 2023 national championship team at LSU was mostly Mainieri-recruited players, including national freshman of the year and SEC player of the year Dylan Crews. He won the Golden Spikes Award for the best player in the nation in 2023 and was the second pick of the 2023 Major League Baseball Draft right behind LSU pitcher Paul Skenes.
“You can’t win 2,000 games, or whatever he’s won. I know it’s a lot, without being a great recruiter,” Johnson said. “He was incredibly successful here at LSU.”
But Mainieri drew the ire of South Carolina fans when he said recently that he underestimated how good the SEC is now, since it was the best conference in baseball when he was coaching at LSU.
Johnson gets that comment, though.
“I’m sure it’s always been the best league,” said Johnson, who previously was Arizona’s head coach. “But the talent concentration is incredibly high in the SEC. The transfer portal is the reason that is the case. With the contraction of the minor leagues (fewer teams), less players are going to pro baseball earlier.”
The NCAA Transfer Portal without sitting out a year after transferring began in 2021 – just after Mainieri retired. Name, Image & Likeness pay-for-play also started in 2021.
“Being at Arizona, you could feel more West Coast kids were starting to fly over the top of us to the SEC,” Johnson said. “Didn’t like that at all. You could seed it coming. It’s been a perfect storm of less opportunities in pro baseball, money for college players now, and the SEC just kept pushing. The quality of the play has gone up.”
And Mainieri is no longer recruiting to LSU. South Carolina was a dynasty 15 years ago as it won back-to-back national championships in 2010 and ’11 with a runner-up finish in 2012 under coach Ray Tanner, who retired after that season and became athletic director. The Gamecocks reached the College World Series six times from 2002-12 under Tanner, but has not been since through two coaches – Chad Holbrook and Kingston – before Mainieri.
“It’s a tough situation here, there’s no question about it,” Mainieri said.
And there have been rumors swirling about Mainieri being fired as the SEC losses have mounted along with the lopsided defeats. There was also a 17-0 loss to Texas A&M and a 12-2 loss to Ole Miss. But if Mainieri is fired within the first three years of his five-year, $6.5 million contract, he receives the total left on the contract. That means if he is fired after this season, he would walk away with over $5.2 million.
“We’re working really hard,” said Mainieri, who just returned from a recruiting trip to Los Angeles. “Recruiting is going extremely well. I’m hopeful and optimistic.”
Mainieri remembers LSU being picked to finish fifth in the six-team SEC West going into his second season in 2008. The Tigers then set the school record with 23 consecutive wins through the NCAA Regional in 2008. They finished 49-19-1 and 18-11-1 in the SEC and reached Omaha.
“I’m very proud of my time at LSU,” he said. “I don’t think anybody took LSU lightly again in baseball after that season. And that can happen here at South Carolina as well, but it may not happen as quickly as it did at LSU. But we’re working really hard. And I’m staying.”
Mainieri did keep his home outside Baton Rouge, but is committed to turning South Carolina around.
“South Carolina is a really nice place and a good city,” he said. “I miss my friends and everybody back in Baton Rouge, but I’ll be back soon enough. In the meantime, I’m just trying to build this South Carolina program into something that it once was.”
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