Freshman infielder/pitcher Kevin Koziol was dismissed from the LSU baseball team this weekend after his arrest for driving while intoxicated.
Koziol, 19, was booked into East Baton Rouge Parish Prison early Sunday morning. He was reportedly charged with reckless operation of a vehicle and disobeying a red light.
“As soon as I heard about it I called him in, verified it was true, and I told him he was being dismissed from the team,” said LSU coach Paul Mainieri. “There’s just certain levels of behavior I expect out of LSU baseball players, and obviously that is not one that is going to be acceptable by me.”
The 6-foot-2, 195-pound freshman from Orland Park, Ill., was the 2009 Illinois Gatorade Player of the Year, a three-time Illinois All-State selection and the 2010 Conference Player of the Year.
Mainieri said the players had been “well warned” about the ramifications of their actions and this offense warranted the dismissal.
“If players don’t want to abide by these expectations of behavior that I have, then there’s no reason for them to be a part of the program,” he said. “It’s embarrassing to me and it’s embarrassing to the rest of the players when these kinds of things happen.”
He said Koziol “wasn’t in the mix” to start this season.
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