Nick Mingione bared his soul on Sunday after Kentucky advanced to their first-ever College World Series. He shared an emotional message on family, faith, and all the facts in his life that allowed the Wildcats to achieve what they never had before in the Lexington Super Regional.
One reporter asked Mingione a question about his family and specifically the moment when he picked up and celebrated with his son, Reeves, following the 3-2 win for No. 2 Kentucky over Oregon State. The father began by letting his child, who sat to the right of him at the press conference, express what he felt about what they shared in those seconds.
Try Fubo for FREE today and don’t miss any of the action!
“Amazed and very happy,” Reeves Mingione said. “Never felt anything like that in my life. I’ll just never forget that moment.”
When Mingione began, he started with his wife, Christen, to his left. He gave her a ton of credit as being the anchor in his life as a coach.
“This is going to be hard but I want to get real with you guys. I cannot do this without Christen,” said Mingione. “She is my rock. Coach’s wives do not get enough credit for what they have to go through.”
However, that’s when the true nature of the message came out from Mingione.
After 2022, Mingione had just completed his sixth season as head coach in Lexington. His tenure had started well but had seen declining results over recent years. That led to plenty of concerns, even though the Wildcats had just made an impressive run in Hoover at the SEC Tournament to end the campaign. It also led to introspection from Mingione as to what all had been going wrong.
“2022 was a really hard time for me. It was a really difficult time. I want to share some things of why – and maybe you see a side of me that you haven’t seen,” Mingione prefaced. “We really believed that we had a Regional or Super Regional-type team. I’m going to tell you this – we went on this great run, we were one win short. We were on win short. We finished fourth in the SEC Tournament for the first time ever. It was the best finish but we were one win short.”
“Earlier in that year, I had some dark nights,” admitted Mingione. “I was hurting like I’ve never hurt before. I can be hard-headed and I can be stubborn. Ask this woman – she’ll tell you. I was beat down. I was a beat down coach. God taught me a valuable lesson. I did something that I’ve only done two other times in my life and I surrendered. I just finally said, ‘Lord, I’m done. I’m done. I cannot do this on my own anymore. I’m hurting for those two boys, I’m hurting for our team’. I just felt like, man, and I was trying to do it all by myself.”
From then on, Mingione left it all to his higher power. That belief led to changes and, since the moment, Kentucky Baseball hasn’t been the same and been better off for it when you look at all they’ve accomplished.
“The Lord put it on my heart that I was not using my spiritual gifts that he has given me. We had to make changes. I had to make changes. One major change we made was we brought Nick Ammirati from coaching third base to the dugout to be with the players. It put me at third base and I started coaching third base,” Mingione recalled. “On May 15th of 2022, I started coaching third base and I put Ammi in there. You can’t make this up. I surrendered. I surrendered and I said, ‘Lord, I can’t do it’. That’s what he led me to do.”
“From that day on, on May 15th, you can check the stats. In the regular season only, we have more wins than any team in the SEC,” said Mingione. “You can’t make this up. Only God can make this up.”
Mingione was emotional and vulnerable throughout this minutes-long response. It was the reaction of someone who saw their belief pay off, though, as his program did what, before Sunday, had never been done and some thought that they could never do.
“People told me it would be impossible for Kentucky to make it to Omaha. I literally had people tell me that. That day? I surrendered and this is what the Lord has done,” said Mingione. “God taught me a lesson. It’s not what you’re playing for. It’s who you’re playing for. I got done chasing this dream of Omaha and I just said I’m done – ‘I’m not chasing that anymore, Lord. I want to play for you’. It’s not what you’re playing for. It’s who you’re playing for and that’s what God taught me.”
“So here we stand today. I give him all the honor and glory. To God be the glory,” Mingione stated. “Amazing, amazing and I hope you appreciate my transparency because that was real.”
The post Nick Mingione delivers powerful message on what his family means to him after leading Kentucky to Omaha appeared first on On3.
