Coleman-Mainieri conversation pivotal

• By RANDY ROSETTA
• Advocate sportswriter
• Published: Jul 5, 2009

• Print
• Email
• Save
• Reprints
• Twitter
• Share

• Del.icio.us
• Digg
• Facebook
• Reddit
• 

Halfway through his junior season in 2008, LSU pitcher Louis Coleman was languishing deep in the bullpen when he went to his second-year coach in search of answers.

Coleman got one from Paul Mainieri, although not exactly what he was looking for.

“I know this: He’s always going to be brutally honest with you,” Coleman said with a chuckle.

“When I went to see him, I told him I thought I should be pitching more because I thought I was the third- or fourth-best pitcher on our team. He looked me right in the eye and told me I was the 14th out of 16 in his mind.”

That eye-opening clear-the-air session with Mainieri midway through last season proved to be a major turning point for Coleman.

As a freshman in 2006, Coleman began his career as a Friday-night starter for the coach who recruited him to LSU, Smoke Laval.

Had Coleman’s skills really deteriorated to the point last spring where his new coach thought he was No. 14 on the depth chart?

Probably not, but Mainieri had a method behind his message, and it worked.

“Him telling me that really motivated me to show him what I could do,” Coleman said. “It’s his job to win ballgames, and it was my job to show him I could help do that. You have to respect the decision-maker whether you respect the decision or not.

“If he wasn’t honest with me that day, then maybe I would’ve kept doing what I was doing and I never would’ve made the improvement I needed to. Once he gave me the idea that I had something to improve on, I started working my butt off to get better.”

From that bare-the-soul meeting last March until June 24 when Coleman threw the final pitch in the Tigers’ College World Series clinching victory over Texas, the right-hander was one of the best pitchers in the country.

A little-used mop-up man for the first season and a half of Mainieri’s tenure, Coleman blossomed as a valuable reliever over the last half of last season and finished 8-1 as a multipurpose reliever.

Coleman went into the 2009 season slated to be LSU’s closer, but quickly moved into the starting rotation and put together the best season of his life, notching a 14-2 record and earning SEC Pitcher of the Year honors.