South Carolina hires former Texas assistant coach Chris Gordon as Director of Player Development
South Carolina baseball coach Paul Mainieri has completed his coaching staff with the addition of a former Texas assistant coach.
Mainieri has brought in Chris Gordon as the Director of Player Development, it was announced on Monday. Gordon will serve as the Director of Analytics as well as the Camp Coordinator for the Gamecocks.
Try Fubo for FREE today and don’t miss any of the action!
“Chris is going to be a valuable member of our staff. In today’s game, analytics, technology, and statistics play a vital role in player development, recruiting, scouting reports, and game strategy,” Mainieri said in a statement. “Chris’ proficiency in all of the developmental systems we have at our access… is outstanding and his ability to analyze the data to make recommendations to the coaches will be critical.
“In addition, Chris will be tasked with growing our camp program at Founders Park and his significant experience in the past as a camp director will lead to great success on this front.”
Chris Gordon was hired to the South Carolina staff after spending the previous two seasons at Texas. He was an on-field coach for the Longhorns in 2024, working with Texas pitchers. During the 2023 season, he was in a player development role, working with both pitchers and hitters.
Prior to coming to Texas, Gordon was on staff at Duke from 2017-22, including serving as a pitching coach during part of his time with the Blue Devils.
Paul Mainieri describes his reaction to getting the call from South Carolina
Chris Gordon will be working under Paul Mainieri on the South Carolina coaching staff after he surprised many be coming out of retirement to coach the Gamecocks.
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.
“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.”