By GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor
As LSU baseball coach Skip Bertman taught him, former LSU pitcher Ben McDonald had a plan as he stepped to the podium to eulogize his coach on Tuesday night at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
“Always have a plan, Skip used to say,” McDonald said of the five-time national champion coach and former LSU athletic director who passed away at age 88 on Aug. 15.
In this case, it was a contingency plan.
“I’ve been busted up pretty good the last 12 days as I’m sure all of you have been over the loss we’ve all had,” said McDonald, who pitched for LSU from 1987-89 and was the first selection of the 1989 Major League Baseball Draft. “The loss of someone we all loved.”
So, McDonald’s plan was – if he got too choked up to speak – to hold up his right index finger and thumb in the shape of an “L” and take a break.
“And you hold it up at that point, too, and we’ll get through this together,” McDonald said.
That was the strategy when the inevitable tears would come, much like the “inevitable two” runs teams often gave up in the first inning, according to Bertman’s preachings.
And just minutes into his speech, McDonald’s “L” went up and the crowd followed suit. McDonald wept openly at times as he did during an interview with Paul Finebaum on ESPN on the day Bertman died.
As McDonald finally got through it before a likewise tearful audience, he said, “I’m one of the many sons of this program saying goodbye to the man who built it.”
What a great night of stories and love for Skip Bertman, who held the rope like no other for LSU. pic.twitter.com/g4AE9KWAlm
— Glenn Guilbeau (@SportBeatTweet) August 26, 2026
LSU baseball coach Jay Johnson was 14 years old on June 8, 1991, watching on TV at his home in Oroville, California, when Bertman and his Tigers won their first national championship. Pitcher Rick Greene’s slider induced a ground ball from Jason White to third baseman Chris Moock, who threw to first for the final out and a 6-3 win over Wichita State at Rosenblatt Stadium in Omaha, Nebraska.
Greene carried the 1991 national championship trophy to the front of the stage.
“I immediately wanted to go the Chico Mall and buy an LSU Baseball hat,” Johnson said. “I didn’t know where Baton Rouge was at the time.”
Johnson was watching LSU in a national championship game again on June 17, 2000, when he was 23 and just finished his college baseball playing career at Point Loma Nazarene in San Diego. And he watched Brad Cresse single to left field to score Ryan Theriot from second base for a walk-off, 6-5 victory over Stanford in the national championship game.
Cresse carried the 2000 national championship trophy to the front of the stage, joining the 1991 trophy, the 1993 trophy carried by Todd Walker, the 1996 trophy brought up by Warren Morris and the 1997 trophy carried up by Patrick Coogan.
After watching Bertman win his fifth national title in 2000, Johnson soon became a baseball coach the next season as an assistant at Point Loma Nazarene, then its head coach in 2005. From there he was an assistant at the University of San Diego from 2006-13, Nevada’s coach in 2014 and ’15 and Arizona’s coach from 2016-21 before arriving at LSU for the 2022 season. He has won two national championships in five seasons (2023 and ’25) with Bertman there each time.
“In what world,” Johnson beamed, “does your idol become your best friend?”
And in what world does the 86-year-old Bertman mimic Tommy White’s pose after after his walk-off, two-run home run to beat No.1 Wake Forest, 2-0, in 11 innings to put LSU in the national championship series in 2023? Bertman did that while walking by the LSU dugout after receiving an award on the field just before the national championship opener against Florida two nights after the win over Wake Forest.
“This dude has got it,” Johnson said he thought at the time. “The team loved it. It relaxed them, and we won it.”
Johnson then quoted Ole Miss coach Mike Bianco, who was Bertman’s catcher in 1988 and ’89 at LSU and an assistant under him for three national titles in 1993, ’96 and ’97.
“Mike said that Skip was a self-esteem machine,” Johnson said.
And he closed with, “Now, it’s all of our jobs to hold the rope. I love you coach.”
Small pieces of rope were given to attendees, emblematic of Bertman’s famous, “Hold The Rope” story that is also the name of an SEC Storied documentary on Bertman. The moral of the story is that all players must trust every single one of their teammates enough to where they would pick any teammate to hold the end of a rope, if they were hanging off a cliff by the other end.
SEC associate commissioner Herb Vincent, who worked as an associate athletic director when Bertman was athletic director from 2001-09, also eulogized Bertman.
“Skip let us come into his world, and we were all better because of it,” he said.
LSU baseball sports information director opened the Celebration of Life at the microphone and closed it there as he does at all baseball games at Alex Box Stadium.
Franques said opposing coaches would often praise Bertman for his players’ approach at the plate or for a particular bunt defense. But there was one comment from an opposing coach that Franques said was Bertman’s favorite:
“Coach, when your players take the field, they look like they know they’re going to win.”
Franques said Bertman brought that same approach to his job as athletic director, particularly when Bertman started the vastly profitable football season tickete licensing plan in 2003.
“Skip Bertman set LSU on a course to becoming the global power that we are today,” Franques said.
Former LSU associate athletic director Dan Radakovich said Bertman brought the “Hold The Rope” mentality to the athletic department.
“He took the rope from baseball to the athletic department, but not to hold,” said Radakovich, who worked with Vincent and current LSU athletic director Verge Ausberry under Bertman. “He gave it to us to let us do things based on our decisions under his direction. He always gave us the freedom, or enough rope, to do our jobs. And he always gave coaches what they needed to be successful.”
While Bertman was LSU’s athletic director from 2001-09, the football team won national championships in 2003 and ’07 and the baseball team won it all in 2009. He also hired four coaches who went on to win national championhips – Les Miles in football in 2007 with a runner-up finish in 2011, Paul Mainieri in baseball in 2009 with a runner-up finish in 2017, Dennis Shaver in women’s outdoor track in 2008 and in men’s outdoor track in 2021, and Chuck Winstead in men’s golf in 2015.
“He was the best athletic director in the history of LSU,” Ausberry said.
“We’ve learned the lessons,” former baseball player Pete Bush said at a private players’ ceremony for Bertman earlier Tuesday. “We know what to do. We’ve got the rope from here.”
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