For the 17th time in his career with LSU baseball, coach Paul Mainieri has been named a coach of the year by either a local, regional or national organization. For the first time, though, he will achieve an award named after one of his predecessors on Monday night.
Mainieri has been selected as the third recipient of the the Skip Bertman National Coach of the Year award, the National College Baseball Hall of Fame announced Monday morning. The Tigers’ skipper will officially receive the award at the Night of Champions in Lubbock, Texas.
“I am so honored as this award means more to me than any award that I have ever received,” Mainieri said in a news release. “I say this because of the respect I have for Skip Bertman and all he has done for college baseball. In addition to that fact, he is my dear friend , and he brought me to LSU when he was the athletic director. When he hired me, I told him my only goal at LSU was to make him proud of me.”
Mainieri directed the Tigers to a 54-12 mark, an SEC regular season title, and the program’s 17th appearance in the College World Series, where it was eliminated by TCU. LSU was also the consensus No. 1 team in the country to close out the regular season and lost just one series all year, including sweeps in its regional and super regional.
For these achievements, Mainieri was named SEC Coach of the Year and National Coach of the Year by the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association.
Although this is the first time Mainieri has won this specific award, he was one of five finalist for it in its inaugural year. Other finalist for this year’s honor include Illinois coach Dan Hartleb – the only other Division I coach – and LSU Eunice coach Jeff Willis, who led the Bengals to a NJCAA Division II national championship.
“I am so very happy to be giving the award to a great coach and to my great friend, Paul Mainieri,” Bertman said in the news release.