The South Carolina Gamecocks hired Paul Mainieri, looking to lead the program back to prominence. Luckily it doesn’t appear that the program is in need of a total rebuild.
During his introductory press conference, Mainieri explained that there is a lot of good about the South Carolina program that he’s taking over. Because of that, he believes that he and the Gamecocks program should be able to have plenty of success.
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“Let me say this, first of all, this program isn’t in the doldrums,” Paul Mainieri said. “Okay? They won 37 games last year. They won three games in the SEC Tournament. They won a game in the regional. They’re close. There’s talent on this team. I know there’s talent on this team.”
In the 2024 season, South Carolina went 37-25 with a 13-17 record in conference play. The Gamecocks managed to win three games in Hoover for the SEC Tournament before losing in the NCAA Regional.
“People say, ‘How many years is this gonna take?’ Look, I don’t have a three-year plan. I don’t have a five-year plan. I’ve got a one-year plan. This team, the kids that are on this team that only have one more year of eligibility, they don’t care about two years from now or three years from now,” Mainieri said.
“We’re gonna go out there and do the best we can this coming year, and if we do a little bit more to supplement the team that we have coming back through recruiting and transfer portal and so forth. I don’t see why we can’t compete for everything right out of the gate. I didn’t come here to lose. I didn’t come here to be mediocre. In my opinion, Carolina baseball represents excellence. I think we need to win now.”
Paul Mainieri has spent plenty of time around college baseball and knows that succeeding at South Carolina is going to come down to the team having a culture of doing all the little things right.
“Ray Tanner and Bobby Richardson and June Raines, all the great coaches of the past, they didn’t work so hard to build a mediocre team. They’re not happy with mediocrity, and nor will I. This is my last go around. I’m not working anywhere after here, okay. This is it. So, I think we need to win now. I think we should go for it. I don’t know if it’s gonna happen. It’s a tough league, I don’t know if you know that, but it’s a tough league. We’re going to go out there and compete our you-know-what’s off every day, and if we get a few breaks and make it happen, but I think the attitude of the players is going to dictate everything. If they’re disciplined. If they care about the little things,” Mainieri said.
“It starts with how they conduct themselves, how they keep their lockerroom, how they respect their facilities, it’s how they interact with the public. It’s all those kinds of things that if they’re totally dedicated to a cause, and we have the discipline and maybe we teach them to handle the pressure situations a little bit better…it’s an accumulative thing that doesn’t just happen overnight. You’ve got to do it every day. You’ve got to be a champion every day if you really want to hold up the big trophy at the end…if we recruit the right players, coach them the right way…I don’t see why we should put limits on what we accomplish.”
Prior to taking the South Carolina job, Mainieri made stops as a head coach at St. Thomas, Air Force, Notre Dame, and LSU.
The post Paul Mainieri: ‘This program is not in the doldrums’ appeared first on On3.