STARKVILLE — Chris Lemonis was one of many Mississippi State outsiders captivated by its baseball team and its improbable run to the College World Series. He recalls watching Elijah MacNamee’s walkoff home run in the Tallahassee Regional while he was with his own team at the time, Indiana, in the Austin Regional.
He didn’t want to risk losing some of that magic as he took over the team.
That’s why, among many reasons, Lemonis made it official that he is retaining assistant coach Jake Gautreau in his introductory press conference Tuesday. Lemonis liked the idea of keeping Gautreau after watching the team play in the Nashville Super Regional and College World Series, so he only had one question when he finally met Gautreau.
“His relationship with the kids,” Lemonis said. “I know he can coach hitting, I know he can coach infield, I know he can recruit; it was the relationship piece, that’s what we were looking for.”
Lemonis also said Gautreau will be the team’s hitting coach, despite his own experience in coaching hitting. Lemonis will still coach hitters, telling Gautreau he may not have as much freedom with hitters as he had with Gary Henderson, but he doesn’t plan on stepping on Gautreau’s toes, either.
It all comes together to help Lemonis in living up to a very immediate, very high set of expectations.
With MSU returning all three starting outfielders — Rowdey Jordan, Jake Mangum and Elijah MacNamee, from left to right — plus freshman starters at first base (Tanner Allen), third base (Justin Foscue) and designated hitter (Jordan Westburg), there will be some buzz for the 2019 Bulldogs to make a return trip to Omaha.
Lemonis has seen this situation in every stop of his career.
“All he’s done at the three collegiate programs he’s been a part of is win, win and win,” MSU Director of Athletics John Cohen said.
When he joined the staff at The Citadel in 1995, he was coaching a program that he just took to the College World Series as a player in 1990 and returned to the NCAA tournament in 1994 without him. The same program that made the NCAA tournament four times in 29 years, from 1961 to 1989, earned a bid to the tournament five times in Lemonis’ first 10 years on staff.
When he left his alma mater for Louisville in 2007, he and head coach Dan McDonnell took the Cardinals to the College World Series in their first year and missed the NCAA tournament just once in their 14 years together.
The Hoosiers needed 18 years to make three trips to the NCAA tournament, but Lemonis did that in his four years there.
Lemonis knows he has to do the same immediately at MSU given the returning roster, and that reality does not scare him.
“That’s the expectation,” Lemonis said. “We won’t be scared to talk about playing for a national championship. That’s what you want here, and that’s not easy: it’s hard to win a Regional, it’s hard win a Super Regional, it’s hard to win in the SEC, but that’s what we’re dreaming for.”
The immediate expectation does place Lemonis between the rock and hard place of starting to build the program in his vision for the years to come, while not uprooting the entire thing to risk success in 2019. He is already performing that balance with his staff, keeping Gautreau on board but also saying he will spend the next couple of weeks searching for outside candidates to fill out his staff.
He is aware of his unique situation, wondering aloud if he is the first coach to take over a team two days after it was eliminated from the final four of the College World Series. He also know what it takes to stay in it — and he plans on staying in it for a long time.
“I wake up everyday, my feet hit the floor and I’m thinking about Omaha.”
Follow Dispatch sports writer Brett Hudson on Twitter @Brett_Hudson
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