New baseball coach Paul Mainieri loves a challenge. He has relocated his family five times, accepted head coaching positions at schools that no other coach would touch and reached the pinnacle of success each time. He settled into what most coaches consider a dream job at Notre Dame where he took a struggling program to its highest peaks the past few seasons. With his success at Notre Dame, Mainieri had support from fans and the school’s administration. Still, he is confident in his choice to leave. “I’ve never been so confident about a decision I have made in my life,” Mainieri said. “I’m just a guy who loves baseball, my family and loves his friends. Trying to win games is important. It’s the American way. We are going to make LSU a consistent big time college program like it once was, but I won’t do it at the expense of the players. We are going to be a positive influence on the kids. If they can be successful at the game of baseball, they will be successful at the game of life.” Mainieri’s coaching career began shortly after the close of his Major League career with the Chicago White Sox. He always attributes gaining something from everything that happens in life, good or bad. When he was released by the White Sox, it was the first time in his life someone told him he wasn’t good enough. “I had been learning life lessons all the time – well this was another one,” Mainieri said. His coaching career started at the lowest level, as an assistant high school baseball coach. He then took a head coaching job at St. Thomas, a junior college in Florida that was so desperate, they hired Mainieri with only high school experience. Mainieri, 48, loved the challenge, and excelled as a head coach. When The Air Force Academy hosted St. Thomas in a non-conference game, Mainieri’s squad played so well that the Air Force head coach approached him following the game, offering him the position because the Air Force was civilianizing the job. Again, Mainieri took over a dead end job. After six seasons each at St. Thomas and The Air Force Academy, he finally grabbed his big break when he was offered the top baseball job at Notre Dame. He moved to Southbend, Ind., as the all-time winningest coach at St. Thomas and the second all-time winningest coach at Air Force. Twelve years later, Maineiri has had 49 of his Notre Dame players be drafted or sign professional free-agent contracts, along with a trip to the College World Series and five Big East Tournament titles. Along the way, Maineiri grew to admire many mentors, including Bertman, Maestri, Tommy Lasorda and Jim Henry. Most of all, Mainieri looked up to his father Demie. Mainieri was born to play and coach the game. Demie was the winningest head coach in junior college history at Miami-Dade North Community College winning 1,018 games and a national title in his 30-year career. Mainieri grew up around his father’s baseball program. At the age of 14, while sitting in his father’s dugout, he told his dad that he wanted to be a coach when he grew up. Their relationship was never the same. “Once I told my dad that I wanted to be a coach, our relationship changed instantly,” Mainieri said. “He now treated me as a student or a protégé and taught me how to run a baseball team, not just coach.” Mainieri’s curiosity and love of the game then led the 17-year-old to Baton Rouge at LSU. His dream was to always play for his father, but he wanted to learn the coaching techniques of other coaches besides his father, so that he could form his own identity. As a freshman in 1976, his new mentor was none other than Athletics Director Skip Bertman. “I know about Paul’s strong baseball pedigree, and naturally that’s good,” Bertman said. “He is a man of values that places a high priority on academic success, and of course has high expectations of players both on and off the field. He represents God, family and then the school.” As a youngster surrounded by baseball in Miami, Mainieri studied Bertman’s coaching tactics at the University of Miami. He admired the Hurricanes for their precision in executing and the team’s confidence. After a year at LSU, Mainieri knew he had only one year remaining to play for his father because of junior college eligibility requirements. Following his sophomore season at Miami-Dade North, he relocated back to Louisiana at the University of New Orleans to finish his collegiate career. Despite only playing at LSU for one season, Mainieri said he and his wife Karen feel like it’s a homecoming. The couple originally met outside of Broussard Hall on campus. Today, Karen and Paul have four children. The youngest, Thomas, 12, will relocate with his parents to Baton Rouge. In coming back to Baton Rouge, Mainieri’s coach at UNO, Ron Maestri, said his former pupil has simply done what he always has – accepted a challenge. “Any coach worth salt likes a challenge,” said Ron Maestri, former UNO baseball head coach. “Coaches were scared of the head coaching position at LSU because of the expectations. Not Paul.”
_____Contact Brennan David at bdavid@lsureveille.com