Some people say diamonds are a girl’s best friend, but for LSU baseball coach Paul Mainieri, the baseball diamond has been one of his best friends since childhood.
Whether it has been playing baseball as a kid in Miami, Fla. or playing his college ball at LSU, Miami-Dade Community College and the University of New Orleans, Mainieri has always surrounded himself with dusty infields and freshly cut grass.
“I love everything about the game of baseball,” Mainieri said. “I have a passion for it because it has always played such a big part in my life. I grew up in Miami, Fla. and because my dad was a coach there I was basically raised in the dugout at Miami-Dade Community College.”
With a rich baseball past and his love and passion for America’s favorite pastime, many LSU baseball fans are hoping for great things from the former Notre Dame coach.
Expectations that Mainieri, 49, seems to embrace.
“I feel a great responsibility being the coach at LSU to restore LSU to the glory they are use to experiencing around here,” he said. “Nobody is going to put any more pressure on me than I already put on myself. Nobody out there is going to have higher expectations for the program than I’m going to have.”
After leading the Notre Dame Fighting Irish to 533 wins and nine NCAA Tournament appearances in 12 years, Mainieri accepted the LSU coaching position because he felt like if he did not, he would regret it for the rest of his life.
“Coaching the LSU baseball team is the best college baseball coaching job in the country,” Mainieri said. “What Skip [Bertman] did here through the ’90s is off the charts, and it hurts me … to see the program tail off a little bit.”
Mainieri, who spent six years coaching at the U.S. Air Force Academy prior to accepting the Notre Dame position, is currently ranked No. 22 among active Division I coaches with 864 career victories.
During his tenure at Notre Dame, he led the Fighting Irish to 11 40-win seasons, nine conference titles and a berth in the program’s first College World Series since 1957.
As the Miami-Dade Community College baseball coach, Demie Mainieri, Paul’s father, said the numbers his son has compiled over the past 12 years have shown Paul’s commitment to his job.
“I think he was one of those people that were born to be a coach,” Demie Mainieri said. “He has a grasp for the game that’s unbelievable, and it all started when he was a youngster with me in the dugout.”
After being inducted into five separate halls of fame, retiring as the winningest junior college baseball coach of all time, capturing a junior college national championship and having more than 30 of his former players reach the major leagues, Demie Mainieri said Paul’s coaching has exceeded his expectations as a father.
“I think he has surpassed anything I have ever done,” Demie Mainieri said. “He’s accomplished more than I have ever accomplished in coaching.”
Demie Mainieri pointed out Paul Mainieri’s .728 winning percentage that he has compiled since 2000 ranks No. 4 in the nation behind baseball powerhouses Rice University, Oral Roberts University and Florida State University.
Paul Mainieri admitted that maintaining such a high level of success in South Bend, Ind., was one of the biggest hurdles he had to get over while coaching there.
“The challenge at Notre Dame for developing a baseball program was tremendous,” Mainieri said. “It was a huge challenge primarily because you were at a football crazy school, but we also had a climate there that was not conducive to promoting college baseball.”
Although Mainieri will not have to worry about the Louisiana climate being conducive to baseball, he inherits a team that sank to its lowest point since the pre-Skip Bertman era after finishing this past season with an overall record of 35-24.
After losing the team’s leading hitter and catcher, Matt Liuzza, the team’s home run and RBI leader, Quinn Stewart, closer Chase Dardar and five other seniors, Mainieri said he is not worried about the youth and inexperience of the team.
“In 1999 and in 2003 – two years that I took teams to regional tournaments at Notre Dame – I had five freshmen in the starting lineup each year,” Mainieri said. “I’ve got the guts of a burglar when it comes to playing freshmen. I don’t care if they’re freshmen, sophomore, junior or senior. I’m going to play the guys that give us the best chance to win.”
Along with the 864 wins, nine tournament appearances and “the guts of a burglar,” Mainieri brings in an academic standard that allowed his Notre Dame players to maintain their eligibility at the nation’s 20th-ranked university, according to U.S. News and World Report.
After earning a team grade point average of 2.573 this past spring – the lowest team GPA of any sporting team at the university – LSU Athletics Director Skip Bertman looked for a coach that could emphasize the importance of not only winning the big game but passing the big test as well.
“When I began the search for a new LSU baseball coach, I was looking for a unique individual,” Bertman said. “It would take someone special to lead this program, someone who would demand excellence in both athletics and academics, someone who would represent LSU with dignity and class, and someone who would thrive in the high expectations of a championship program.”
In 12 years at Notre Dame, Mainieri accumulated a 100 percent graduation rate of players who completed their eligibility.
Mainieri said he makes each current player and possible recruit promise him that they will earn a degree while attending LSU.
“I don’t understand why a kid would come to college for three or four years and not earn a degree,” Mainieri said. “It’s ludicrous to me.”
Senior catcher Will Davis said the team’s new ball coach has placed a major emphasis on the team’s academic progress and said Mainieri is committed to seeing his players succeed in the classroom.
“He stays on us,” Davis said. “He makes sure we go to class. [The coaches] check on us a lot more, and it’s something that we go over in every meeting. He really cares, and he doesn’t want us to come in here for three or four years and just get used, but he wants us to get something out of it and get a degree.”
Mainieri’s emphasis on academics has helped the team improve its overall fall 2006 GPA to an all-time, single-semester high of 2.88, according to Mainieri.
At his preseason press conference, Mainieri also added that 19 players earned a 3.0 GPA or higher, seven earned a 3.5 or higher and one player had a perfect 4.0 this past fall.
Mainieri’s caring attitude is a trait that sophomore shortstop Buzzy Haydel said allows Mainieri to command respect from other players.
“He’s a player’s coach,” Haydel said. “I always feel like I can go in and talk to him. His office is always open. He really relates well to you and gets to know you on a personal level, and that’s what makes it special.”
The expectations and winning attitude that surrounds the LSU baseball program has been a welcomed attraction for Mainieri.
“Probably the most frequently asked question I have had this fall has been, ‘Coach, when are we going to get back to Omaha?'” Mainieri said. “And my response has been pretty standard, ‘Not soon enough for my liking.’ So I’m expecting we are going to go to Omaha this year. If it doesn’t happen then I’m not going to be satisfied.”
—–Contact Jay St. Pierre at [email protected]