Former LSU baseball coach Paul Mainieri expected to take South Carolina job after 3 years retired

It was widely reported Monday afternoon that former LSU baseball coach Paul Mainieri, who won a national championship with the Tigers in 2009 and got them back to a College World Series final in 2017, is expected to come out of retirement to fill the South Carolina head coaching vacancy.

Mainieri retired after the 2021 season and although he has been an advisory for Miami and another former team Notre Dame in their respective coaching searches, Mainieri has remained retired. However, the Gamecocks parted ways with their head coach Mark Kingston after the Gamecocks were eliminated by James Madison in the Raleigh regional. The hiring is expected to be made official after the South Carolina Board of Trustees meet to officially approve the hire.

Can Mainieri be successful at South Carolina? He is a proven commodity who has won championships and competed at a very high level for an extended period of time shown throughout his time at LSU. However, Mainieri has never existed in the NIL-era of collegiate athletics; Mainieri retired in June 2021, just one month before the Supreme Court unanimously voted to allow college athletes to benefit from the names, images, and likenesses. Is the former Tiger skipper ready to fully embrace the new wild west of college baseball, and is South Carolina going to give him the tools to be successful?

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