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Paul Mainieri with LSU in 2020. (Brian Westerholt/Four Seam Images)
Paul Mainieri had accepted what seemed like the finality of his decision to walk away from baseball in 2021.
Having won several conference titles in different leagues, guided two different teams to the College World Series, earned a national title in 2009 and been named Coach of the Year, Mainieri, at the time, felt as though there was little outstanding for him to accomplish.
“I was happy,” he reflected. “There were no regrets.”
There were a few key factors that contributed to Mainieri’s readiness—or so he thought nearly four years ago—to walk away from the game.
Then 63 years old, he could see the shifts in the college athletics landscape quite clearly. As transfer portal numbers began to soar, roster construction became an increasingly daunting task. The pandemic added a layer of uncertainty, too.
Compounded with health concerns that were getting harder to ignore, the former LSU head coach felt as though he wasn’t able to keep up in a race where the speed was growing, and out of fairness to the players he led, he decided it was time to step away.
“I was just having some terrible problems with my neck, and it was all kind of exhausting me,” Mainieri said. “I just couldn’t really coach the kids the way that I wanted to. The way I owed it to them.”
But as time went on and Mainieri’s health improved, so, too, did his eagerness to return to a dugout. He didn’t foresee struggle when he looked at the state of college baseball. Mainieri instead saw opportunity.
Then, an opportunity arose—the chance to try again.
“I saw my phone ring and it was (then South Carolina athletic director) Ray Tanner,” Mainieri said.
As he recalls it, Tanner didn’t initially reach out to make a sales pitch. An all-time great college coach himself, Tanner merely wanted to consult Mainieri on his list of candidates after firing head coach Mark Kingston in early June.
But the conversation quickly turned.
Tanner asked Mainieri, against whom he had competed for over a decade, if his health had improved and whether he was enjoying retirement. Candidly, Mainieri shared that he loved his new life away from the game but couldn’t ignore the void that only baseball could fill.
“So he paused and just said, ‘OK, well why don’t you become the head coach at South Carolina,’” Mainieri recounted. “He said, ‘Why not you?’ And after a night of really tossing and turning about it, I realized he was right. Maybe it should be me.”
And so it was.
Mainieri accepted the position less than 24 hours after it was officially offered to him and became just the sixth person to lead the Gamecocks since 1970.
He said his fourth Division I coaching job quickly became the one that excited him most, as it filled him with renewed spirit.
“I haven’t regretted it for a day,” he said. “I enjoyed the fall practices immensely, the players are wonderful to work with and I’ve got a superstar coaching staff. So I’ve just had a ball. You know, three years off, I feel so rejuvenated and energetic and optimistic.”
It helps that Mainieri inherited a roster he evaluated to be ready to succeed right away.
Headlined by first-round hopeful Ethan Petry, South Carolina this year returned a significant portion of its 2024 core. Outfielders Kennedy Jones and Blake Jackson, utility man Talmadge LeCroy and infielder Will Tippett, among others, are back in the fold. Newcomers such as former Saint Mary’s outfielder Dalton Mashore, Ohio State shortstop Henry Kaczmar, Clemson designated hitter Nolan Nawrocki and freshman KJ Scobey stand to bolster the group.
On the mound, South Carolina brought back two-thirds of its total starts made from last year, including senior righty Dylan Eskew and promising sophomore righties Tyler Pitzer and Parker Marlatt.
Former Winthrop righty Caleb Jones and Georgia lefty Jarvis Evans joined the unit.
Putting the team together was the exercise that truly snapped Mainieri back into his championship-winning mindset.
“I didn’t quite realize how much I missed the thrill of team building until I sat back down in the chair and started thinking about what we needed to get done in order to be competitive right away,” he said. “I feel like we did exactly what we needed to do in the end. We feel really good about this first group and what they could do if we really start to put this thing together.”
Worried that he wouldn’t be able to fit back in after three years away from the game, Mainieri quickly realized that it was “like riding a bike.”
“The transition back into it was as smooth as anything could possibly be,” he said. “I’ve always enjoyed every aspect of coaching, whether it was organization or putting a roster together or molding a team. But the best thing is getting to talk to players and seeing the spark in their eyes when you try to help them become successful.”
The way Mainieri said he sees it, those sparks have quickly caught and grown into an encouraging blaze.
The task of maintaining it so that it could burn through the season was a task that excited the veteran head coach.
“We have so much talent this year, and that’s not only a credit to our staff but also to the one that came before us, because they certainly did not leave a barren roster at all,” Mainieri said. “I really feel as though we’ll be able to compete right away and work toward kind of regaining that standard that I think South Carolina baseball fans have been missing since this program was winning national championships under coach Ray Tanner.”
In their first year under Mainieri, the Gamecocks will lean on their depth and experience to accomplish their goals.
“The thing I feel best about going into this season is just the amount of options that we have,” Mainieri said. “We brought back a lot of guys and added from the transfer portal to make a group that I think should be able to withstand the test of a long season and be able to play postseason ball with a lot of depth.”
Mainieri didn’t ignore the fact that success, especially in the SEC, could be as difficult as ever. As bullish as he was about his roster, he also didn’t hesitate to admit that the conference had improved, too, since he was last a part of it.
But, for a coach who once thought he had walked away for good, the fire that once fueled his championship dreams is burning again—brighter than ever.
Mainieri embraces both the challenge and the privilege of leading a program with high expectations. He knows the road ahead won’t be easy, but that’s exactly what excites him.
“I’m just happy to be back,” Mainieri said. “I love the game.”
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