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Paul Mainieri describes his reaction to getting the call from South Carolina

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Ray Tanner, Paul Mainieri Photo by Katie Dugan

After the 2021 season, Paul Mainieri retired from his position as LSU’s head baseball coach. However, he couldn’t stay away from the game for long. During an appearance on “The Paul Finebaum Show,” Mainieri revealed the details of how South Carolina landed him as the program’s next head coach.

“I listened to a couple of schools that tried to get me out of retirement, but they just weren’t the right fit for me,” Mainieri said. “When [South Carolina athletic director] Ray Tanner called me just a couple of weeks ago, that was one that got my attention because I can’t think of a program that’s any more like LSU than South Carolina.

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“They have a beautiful facility here. You have an athletic director that is one of the greatest baseball coaches of all time, which was similar to when I went to LSU and Skip Bertman hired me. I don’t think the program is in the doldrums. I just think it needs a little bit of a shot in the arm and maybe we can provide that.”

If anybody can revive South Carolina baseball, it’s Mainieri. The 66-year-old was the head coach at LSU from 2007-21. During the 15-season stretch, Mainieri guided the program to four SEC regular season titles, six SEC Tournament trophies and one national championship.

With 1,501 career wins, Mainieri is the winningest active coach in college baseball. Mainieri never wanted to stop coaching baseball. During the end of his tenure at LSU, Mainieri began to battle health issues and believed retirement was the best course of action.

Now in a healthier state, Paul Mainieri is ready to make a triumphant return.

“I took 24 hours to get back to to Ray after he presented the opportunity to me, but my family all knew that I wasn’t really happy. There was a void in my life,” Mainieri said.”I love being with my children and my grandchildren and with my wife and doing a lot of things like that… But, I was born to coach, quite frankly.”

Mainieri has his work cut out for him. He will replace head coach Mark Kingston, who South Carolina fired on June 3. The Gamecocks finished the 2024 campaign with a 37-26 overall record and a 13-17 mark in conference play. While Mainieri was at the helm of LSU, the Tigers only recorded less than 13 conference wins once.