Jay Johnson delivers strong praise for his support within LSU's baseball program, administration

When he took the job of heading up a proud LSU baseball program, coach Jay Johnson was under no illusions. He knew exactly how hard the job would be and how thin the margin for error is.

The SEC West is one of the most cut-throat, competitive leagues in college baseball.

Johnson reached out to several coaches who had tried to take on the almost Herculean task of building a successful contender in the midst of the SEC West gauntlet, only to fail.

“I mean, it’s roll the dice,” Johnson said. “Man, the West out here hasn’t worked out. It hasn’t worked out. I actually called a couple of guys that tried to do it just to avoid some of the pitfalls and got some great information from them.

“But they really, I think, they took a chance, if you look at it in the big picture.”

Right or wrong, Johnson wanted that same chance when the LSU baseball program came calling. Johnson, now a national championship winning coach, remembers sitting in front of key administrators like Stephanie Rempe, Dan Gaston and Verge Ausberry as he made his plea.

“I sat in front of them and wanted this worse than anything else in the world and believed that I could do it, that I could do it with this group,” Johnson said.

Two years later no one has a shred of doubt any more. Johnson has done it.

The leader of the LSU baseball program, though, praised just about everyone around him in a press conference following his team’s monster win over Florida to seal the national title.

From athletics director Scott Woodward calling two to three times a week, to Gaston checking into his office every single day, to the coaches and assistants that made it all possible, Johnson was free with his praise.

“There’s a lot of people that made this happen tonight,” Johnson said. “Wes Johnson is a special coach. I mean, he is a special coach. And I’m not worried about replacing the pitching coach, I’m worried about replacing the person. That’s going to be the difficulty because he’s such a great person.”

That’s the concern for LSU, of course, being able to maintain the elite level of success now that coaches like Johnson are getting head coaching gigs at places like Georgia.

But in an organization like the LSU baseball program, there’s always room to move up.

Johnson praised Josh Jordan, Marc Wanaka, Dan Fitzgerald, Jayson Kelly, Nolan King, Paul Mainieri and Skip Bertman for helping along the way. Everyone had at least a small hand in bringing the LSU baseball program back on top.

For the seventh time.

“I’m sure I’m leaving some people out, but a lot of people contributed to this,” Johnson said. “And it makes it even that much more special.”