• By RANDY ROSETTA
• Advocate sportswriter
• Published: Jun 24, 2009

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OMAHA, Neb. — Les Miles wasn’t about to sit at home and miss an LSU championship. That’s too much to expect for a guy who has a national crown under his belt.

For Trent Johnson, the allure was obvious as well. The chance to watch the Tigers play in any sport is a big deal to him. The fact that baseball is involved, that was icing on the cake.

The head coaches of LSU’s two other high-profile sports flew to Omaha on Tuesday afternoon to take in the second game of the College World Series national championship series at Rosenblatt Stadium.

Both are avid baseball fans — Miles of the Cleveland Indians and sons Manny and Ben; Johnson a diehard follower of the San Francisco Giants.

On this night, though, the only team capturing the two coaches’ attention was LSU.

“My family and I really enjoyed watching (Monday) night’s game,” Miles said on a stop through the Rosenblatt press box. “I thought the Tigers were spectacular. It was a game that a very talented Texas team had every opportunity to win and (LSU) just took it away from them.

“It was their will and their spirit that won it. It appears to me this is going to be a championship team and I wanted to be here.”

Miles didn’t get to see the Tigers claim their sixth crown on Tuesday, because Texas bounced back for a 5-1 triumph to force a decisive third game at 6:10 p.m. today.

That didn’t stop him or Johnson from staring wide-eyed at Rosenblatt in both men’s first visit to the CWS.

As the fans filled up, Miles and Johnson spent several minutes with LSU baseball coach Paul Mainieri outside the Tigers dugout and went with him to the left-field wall, where the three coaches greeted a hearty crew of Tigers fans battling the steamy conditions.

Those same fans stayed in their seats as a rain storm blew through, drawing Miles’ admiration.

“The interesting thing is that our Tigers, our fans, are right there in the just rain gettin’ hammered (by rain) and they don’t even care,” Miles said with a smile.

“Can you imagine how fortunate it is to coach at a place where 500-1,000 people wearing purple and gold will stand right in the middle of a monsoon to wait for a first pitch, to hoot and holler and have a blast. The passion that surrounds them.”