What did Paul Mainieri say?
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Sometimes when you beg for coaches to be fired, you really have to be careful what you wish for in certain circumstances. Fans grew very tired, me included, of the inconsistencies that plagued the baseball program under Mark Kingston. However, under Kingston, the Gamecocks were still making the NCAA tournament and never had a regular season as bad as they had this year. The Gamecocks finished the regular season 28-28 overall, with only 6 wins in the SEC. While I totally understand it is year one and will not say Paul needs to be fired, I find some of what he has said in the past days to be very troubling.
“We just went up against players that are better than ours. I don’t know what else to say. Sometimes you have to be honest about where you are and what you’re up against,” said Paul Maineri following another series loss to LSU. This is certainly not what I want to hear from a head coach of a major SEC baseball program. I want to hear passion, fire, and anger. I don’t want to hear, well we just are what we are and there’s nothing I can do about it. How about, I need to coach better, the team needs to get better, and we need to get better players and that’s exactly what we plan to do. This sounds to me like Paul is defeated and deflated, uncertain of where to start to turn this program around. I’m all for honesty in press conferences, but it is ok to put a little lipstick on a pig from time to time.
Since 1892, this is the worst season for Gamecock baseball ever and it’s the worst first season for a Gamecock head coach since 1970. The most troubling part of what I heard from Paul this weekend though wasn’t these stats. It is the fact that he says he hasn’t spoken to Ethan Petry, who by all accounts was in the dugout for the series against LSU this past weekend. Ethan Petry was the star of the team before getting hurt and you said you didn’t talk to him about his status for the SEC tournament? Regardless of Ethan’s status for the SEC tournament, I would be asking him questions about what I can do to recruit players like him for next year or anything I could to improve myself as the head coach of the Gamecocks’ baseball team.
The Gamecocks head into the SEC tournament in Hoover as the 15 seed and hopefully can win a game or two just to build a little momentum heading to the offseason. I don’t see it happening, but afterall there weren’t many positives to take away from this season. However, I did find one positive that I would like to share. The Gamecocks did not lose a mid-week game to a mid-major team all season, meaning they took care of the teams that they were supposed to. See Paul, it isn’t that hard to put lipstick on a pig, I highly suggest you try it or maybe just stop being so honest in your press conferences because right now, you are not gaining any good graces with Gamecock fans.
For more of my sports coverage and show, please make sure to listen to this episode where I discussed Paul and many other topics. Be blessed, not stressed, and just be kind to one another!!!
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