LSU baseball coach enjoyed his time at Air Force

OMAHA, Neb. • Rosenblatt Stadium, site of the College World Series, is a shade less than 600 miles from the Air Force Academy — a fairly manageable drive of about eight hours.

But for the Air Force baseball program, Rosenblatt might as well be on Mars. That’s how far a CWS berth seems for the Falcons.

Air Force went 14-37, including 3-18 in the Mountain West Conference. The Falcons finished last in the league for the seventh straight season, the past six under coach Mike Hutcheon, whose record at the academy is 65-245.

Here in Omaha, however, is a reminder of past respectability — LSU coach Paul Mainieri.

Monday night at 5, Mainieri will guide the Tigers against Texas in the first game of the best-of-three national championship series. But from 1989 to 1994, he was the coach at Air Force. On Saturday afternoon, he called his tenure at the academy “six of the most fun, exhilarating years of my entire personal life or professional life.”

They were also the best of times for Air Force. Under Mainieri, the academy’s first civilian baseball coach, the Falcons compiled a 152-158 record before he left to take over the program at Notre Dame. And three of his six teams had records of .500 or better, including the 1994 squad that led the nation in hitting (.360), slugging (.623) and triples (.76 per game).

“When people would look at that (overall) record, they would think that that wasn’t very successful,” said Mainieri, the 2008 National Coach of the Year. “But the circumstances at the Air Force Academy were so unique that I felt we had a lot of success there.”

Those circumstances include cadets’ military commitments, which all but eliminate the chance for them to play professionally — “and that’s a hard dream for kids to give up,” Mainieri said; the cadets’ summer schedules, which include only three weeks of leave and cut down the amount of summer baseball they can play; the cadets’ academic load; and the weather.

Things haven’t gotten easier since Mainieri left, as the Falcons also now play in a tougher conference and are not permitted to play as many Division II opponents as in the past.

Mainieri said he follows the Falcons “very closely” and roots for them “so hard.”

“It certainly breaks my heart when they struggle to the level they’ve struggled,” he said.

Mainieri recommended Hutcheon for the Air Force job — when Mainieri was at Notre Dame, Hutcheon coached at nearby Bethel College. But Mainieri said he doesn’t keep in “real close contact” with Hutcheon because “I don’t want Mike to think that I’m breathing down his neck.”

“I really hope Mike can find the secrets to success out there because part of (cadets’) experience at the academy is not only to play in athletics but to succeed in athletics,” Mainieri said. “With the unique challenges out there, I think it’s difficult for them to win on a very consistent level.

“But at the same time, I really wish that they’d have a little more success so that the experience for the kids is a better experience.”

Mainieri said he keeps in touch with many of his former players and often sees them at games. He said he wished that one of his former players, Mike Kazlausky, still was involved with the program. One of the better players in program history, Kazlausky was an assistant at Air Force in three different tenures. The last ended in 2008 when he clashed with Hutcheon.

“Personally, I think Kaz is a great asset for the Air Force Academy baseball program, and I wish somehow he was involved still,” Mainieri said. “But, who knows, maybe some day he’ll return to it.”