'It's Like a Dream': Mike Bianco still soaking in Ole Miss baseball's first national championship
Since Ole Miss captured its first baseball national championship on Sunday afternoon in Omaha it has been a whirlwind 72 hours. The team has not really been able to catch their breath or fully savor what just happened in Nebraska, including head coach Mike Bianco.
The Rebels skipper of the last 22 years finally got the mountain top and captured the white whale that Bianco has wanted to bring back to Oxford for over two decades.
Hoisting up that trophy inside Charles Schwab Stadium on Sunday and then inside Oxford-University Stadium on Wednesday during the national championship celebration, it was starting to sink it for Bianco.
Throughout the 11 days in Omaha while Ole Miss was running through opponents and racking up wins to get closer to the championship it was tough for Bianco to contemplate the moment. Sunday evening was a different story.
“The whole time there when we would get back (to the team hotel) I would try to run through the hotel and sign quickly,” Bianco said. “Because if not you just get stuck there and you’ve to prep for the next game, turn your laundry in, got to eat. You probably haven’t eaten in 10 hours. But (on Sunday) there’s no game the next day. So, I took every picture and signed every autograph until nobody wanted anything else. Which was really neat.”
For nearly 90 minutes Bianco stayed in the hotel lobby greeting fans and celebrating a national championship with Rebel Nation.
It was then Bianco was able to spend time with his family. That included having a sandwich and wine with his wife, father and other family members in his hotel room.
“We ate — I dunno if it was Firehouse Sub, Jimmy John’s — and had some wine and just talked and laughed,” Bianco said.
Getting to this moment in his career, securing his first national championship as a head coach, Bianco is still not fully realizing it all just yet.
That moment may take awhile for not just Bianco but the entire program. To fully comprehend and understand what just took place over nearly a week and a half in Omaha.
“I think it’s on a lot of different levels,” Bianco said. “The first night, at least for me, is so surreal. It is like a dream. It’s almost foggy to think back of that. I don’t know if it’s emotional rush. I don’t know if it’s the exhaustion. I don’t know if it’s the bigness, I don’t know. You remember it, but I’ll probably remember (the celebration) a lot clearer. Then the next day you wake up and go, ‘That was really cool.’ Then you have these other moments after that and it continues. There’s kind of a wave of this.”
When the season finally concludes there is usually a time for the head coach to take some down time and decompress from the last four months. Not for Bianco.
After the partying and celebrating across the City of Oxford and Swayze Field concluded, Bianco along with Jacob Gonzalez, Hunter Elliott and Mason Nichols, hopped on a plane to Cary, N.C. Bianco now begins his head coaching duties of Team USA’s National Collegiate Team for the next few weeks.
There will be plenty of time in August for Bianco to sit back and contemplate everything his team just went through and the history made.
Related: Keith Carter: “We can put all of this other stuff to rest. (Mike Bianco) is here. He’s earned it.”
