Paul Mainieri and Erik Bakich's thoughts on facing off in Palmetto series for first time

Paul Mainieri and Erik Bakich’s viewpoints on the South Carolina-Clemson rivalry couldn’t be more different.

Mainieri, who will coach in the series for the first time on Friday, gets the sense that people care more about beating Clemson than how South Carolina does the rest of the season. On the flip side, Bakich, in his third year as the Tigers’ head coach, would be play these games in a “freaking parking lot” if he could.

At Clemson, Bakich says there are often mentions of South Carolina and the rivalry. His program has “things that are dedicated to the Gamecocks all time.”

“We are always paying close attention to them, and they are paying close attention to us,” Bakich said. “The rivalry is best when both teams are awesome. It is great for the state and college baseball when South Carolina and Clemson are two of the best teams with two of the best rosters.”

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Mainieri tries to keep things in perspective and only focuses on the next game on the schedule. Before Tuesday’s game against Gardner Webb, he even worried that South Carolina might look ahead to this weekend’s series since he believes beating Clemson is all anyone has talked to him about.

While Mainieri has coached in plenty of bigger games than the ones against Clemson this weekend, he’s still looking forward to the challenge and all that comes with playing the Gamecocks’ in-state rival. He’s just hoping he and Bakich won’t have to fight each other when they meet in person.

“Have you seen the way he’s built? I’m 67 years old,” Mainieri said. “I hope he and I don’t ever have a disagreement about anything.”

It will be one of the first interactions between the two coaches, as Mainieri doesn’t know Bakich too well. They spoke over the phone in the summer after Mainieri came to South Carolina. It was a “very cordial” conversation, as Mainieri put it.

His only real connection to Bakich is his former assistant Cliff Godwin, who’s the head coach at East Carolina. Bakich and Godwin were teammates at ECU from 1999 to 2000. That’s how Mainieri learned more about his new rival.

“Cliff was my assistant at Notre Dame and LSU. And even when I managed the USA collegiate national team, I took Cliff as my hitting coach,” Mainieri said. “And Cliff always talked about Erik Bakich because they played college ball together at East Carolina, so they’re very close friends. So I just assumed he was a good guy because he’s Cliff’s friend.”

Bakich said he has known Mainieri for what feels like a long time, going back to Mainieri’s days as the head coach at Notre Dame in the late 90s and early 2000s.

“I consider him to be just a really nice man and genuine good guy,” he said. “He’s had a heck of a career and won a national championship and been to Omaha with two different programs. So certainly respect all that he’s accomplished in his career.”

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Although Bakich has a high level of respect for him, he doesn’t believe they are close to being friends yet. Then again, he’s not exactly yearning for that with anyone from South Carolina.

“Not in all the circles and the friendships of the coaching world, I don’t think we’re there, nor would I ever be with the South Carolina coach,” Bakich said. “But he’s a great guy, nice man.”

Mainieri sees things a little bit differently, though. He had a long-standing rivalry when they coached with former South Carolina coach Ray Tanner when he was at LSU. But they’ve always been good friends, especially now that they are in Columbia together.

Maybe down the road, the same thing could happen to him and Bakich. But right now, Mainieri’s focus is on what South Carolina has to do to beat Clemson this weekend.

“I don’t think it has to be, ‘This person is a mortal enemy.’ I hope that our relationship will be good. But I’m not going to worry too much about it,” he said. “The only thing I’m going to concern myself with is getting our team ready to play and go out and play the game as well as we can.”

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