Scott Davis: Ready to place your bets?
Scott Davis has followed South Carolina athletics for over 40 years and provides commentary from a fan perspective. He writes a weekly newsletter year-round and a column during football season that’s published each Monday on GamecockCentral.com.
Following is this week’s Scott Davis newsletter. To receive it each Friday, sign up here.
It’s time to stop treading water.
And it’s time to start swimming towards Omaha.
That was the message South Carolina athletic director Ray Tanner sent to his fanbase when he named former LSU and all-time winningest Division 1 coach Paul Mainieri to lead the baseball program earlier this week. Did we feel shockwaves? I’m going to say we felt shockwaves.
This didn’t just come out of the blue, it come out of another Solar System.
After a dozen years, we thought we knew all of Tanner’s moves as AD. He tended to favor up-and-comers (Shane Beamer, Lamont Paris, Mark Kingston, Chad Holbrook) or second-chancers (Will Muschamp) in his major hires. Going after longtime veterans and established winners didn’t seem to be part of the Tanner brand.
And in the early stages of the search for a new South Carolina baseball coach after Kingston’s firing, it looked like things were headed in a familiar direction. The pursuit appeared to be settling on names like South Carolina assistant and former Clemson coach Monte Lee, as well as a host of candidates in the “rising star” category from which Kingston was unceremoniously plucked seven years ago.
Then, out of nowhere, Tanner went straight-up Mike McGee on us.
The late South Carolina AD McGee, you’ll remember, made his name by hiring dudes who’d already won and won a lot. He hired Lou Holtz and Steve Spurrier to coach the football team. He tabbed Eddie Fogler and Dave Odom to lead the basketball program. And he hired Ray Tanner himself away from Tanner’s own alma mater to come to Columbia and take the baseball team to new heights.
Sometimes it worked (Tanner, Spurrier), and sometimes it sort of worked and sort of didn’t work simultaneously (Fogler, Odom, Holtz), but while McGee was in charge, South Carolina was always in the mix for hiring known quantities and proven winners.
Mainieri? Yep, he’s a known quantity and proven winner.
In 15 years at storied LSU, he won a national championship, guided the Tigers to the College World Series five times, and won four SEC titles. Those numbers are downright Tanner-esque.
Of course, like many of McGee’s hires were, Mainieri is a bit older than the average new head coach: He’ll be 67 when the Gamecocks take the diamond to start next season.
What does that mean? It means there’s no five-year plan for a rebuild. It means winning time is now. It means that Tanner and those helping him oversee the athletic department believe the Gamecocks need just a simple nudge in the right direction to be back in the mix for Omaha.
Friends, Ray Tanner just pushed all his chips into the middle of the table. Ready to place your bets?
Representing Excellence
Mainieri met the media and the Gamecock fanbase for the first time Thursday, and said all the things that those of us who love the team wanted to hear him say. This is what coaches do at introductory press conferences, after all.
But one line from the new coach made my ears perk up, and probably yours, too.
“I don’t see why we can’t compete for everything right out of the gate,” Mainieri said. “I didn’t come here to lose. I didn’t come here to be mediocre. In my opinion, Carolina baseball represents excellence. I think we need to win now.”
The sound you heard after that statement was the rustling noise made by nodding heads all across Gamecock Nation.
These are the very sentiments we’ve longed to hear affirmed by someone in a position of leadership over the last decade. See, we always believed our school was a member of the baseball elite. We believed this program belonged in the upper echelon. We believed there was a long and proud tradition for South Carolina baseball that extended back before even before Tanner arrived.
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We just weren’t entirely sure those heading the team felt the same way about the program with which they’d been entrusted.
Mainieri told us Thursday, in his first appearance as the Gamecock head coach, that he knows what comprises the essence of this program.
Say it with me: Excellence.
Yes, sir.
Answered Questions
For all of Tanner’s accomplishments as the head coach of South Carolina baseball, and for all of the accomplishments that his athletic department has achieved while under his watch, there were some lingering questions. You know it, I know it, we all know it.
Was he willing to find the money and display the will to deliver bona fide coaching stars who could turn around struggling programs? Did he have the negotiating prowess to turn no’s into yes’s? Did he understand the importance of protecting the baseball program’s status as the university’s longest-running winner?
However Mainieri’s time as the Gamecocks head coach turns out, we must acknowledge now that Tanner answered many of those questions above by convincing him to come out of retirement and into the South Carolina dugout.
This was the moment to use all of the resources that were available, the moment to get right with God, the moment to escape mediocrity and embrace excellence.
This was the moment, indeed, to push the chips to the center of the table.
Ray Tanner did just that.
And no matter what hand you’re holding, it’s always a gamble to push all the chips to the center of the table.
But sometimes, the moment calls out to you. Sometimes you know it’s now or never. Sometimes it’s time.
It was time.
And we met the moment.
The rest is up to fate.
Tell me how you feel about South Carolina’s new head baseball coach by writing me at [email protected].