Paul Mainieri - Notre Dame's Head Baseball Coach
June 1, 2000
What a Tournament!
... I have tried to describe the series of events and the atmosphere of what took place down there last weekend, but I dont think words could adequately describe it. It was one of those things that you just had to be there to understand the magnitude of what transpired.
It was one of the most phenomenal experiences that anyone could ever have in athletics. The whole environment of Mississippi State University baseball was an experience. There were 11,000 people in a beautiful ballpark, and with the fans so close in the outfield, you thought you were at Wrigley Field. The fans are the most knowledge baseball people that you would ever want to meet. I thought when we went down there that they would be very rabid fans and intimidate us. They were not nasty to our players at all. They were great fans. They cheered for their team. They were loud and they tried to motivate their team. It was intimidating because of the loudness and the size of the crowd, but it was a very respectful crowd.
As the weekend wore on and they saw the things that our kids did, they embraced our players. On Sunday when we were taking batting practice a couple of hours before game time, there were already 1,000 people in the stands. I walked by the fence and I had fans yelling to me, "Hey coach what are you doing herewe thought we were playing Tulane today." They could not believe that we rallied to win the game against Tulane the night before.
Then to turn around on hardly any sleep and come back the next day and beat State 7-0, playing our best game of the year in every aspect, the fans respected that. I think by the final game though they felt like Notre Dame has had their moments and now it is time for us to just go ahead and whip them and take the trophy home. They came out like gangbusters in the final game but every time they gave us what appeared to be a knockout blow, we got up off the canvas and fought back By doing that we continued to gain the respect of the people down there.