Baseball: Spring practice will start 14 days earlier beginning next season
Gamecock baseball head coach Paul Mainieri has been around the sport for a long time. But times are changing for players and coaches in terms of preparation come the 2025-2026 season.
Currently, NCAA D1 baseball teams begin spring practices 21 days before opening day. However, starting ahead of the 2026 season, teams may begin practice 35 days before opening day.
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Mainieri recently spoke to the media regarding the changes to the practice schedule. “There was a day when there wasn’t a common start date for practice in the spring,” he explained. “Now we have a common start date. I don’t know if you know this, but the NCAA passed a rule last week that beginning next year, the common start date is going to be 35 days before opening day.”
Next season, the prep work will begin shortly after the New Year begins. This new change has been a long time coming for player safety.
“So, next year, it’ll be January 9th as opposed to January 24th,” Mainieri said. “Next year, opening day is February 13th, so you count 35 days back. It’s taken the NCAA all these decades to come to a common start date that makes sense.”
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This new rule adds a greater level of safety and preparation, especially for pitchers. For both their effectiveness as players and their arm health, pitchers should not have to rush their preseason preparation.
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“You need five weeks at least to get your pitchers ready to go,” Mainieri said. “So, not until today have our pitchers been able to be supervised in a way that they should be for health reasons. So, this new rule I’m excited about.”
The new timeline will give Gamecock baseball pitching coach Terry Rooney a longer ramp-up period with his staff. Rooney and Mainieri are thankful for the longer prep time as it will allow pitchers to ready their arms more thoroughly, creating healthier and better-prepared hurlers.
“It’ll make a lot more sense that Terry can supervise our pitchers and have a throwing program for them and diminish the possibility of injury as much as we possibly can,” Mainieri said.
