Clemson baseball coach Erik Bakich reacts to Paul Mainieri stepping down at USC
Clemson baseball coach Erik Bakich loves beating South Carolina, something he’s done often in his tenure. But he’s also a “big fan” of Paul Mainieri.
So Bakich had mixed feelings Saturday after learning that Mainieri and USC had mutually agreed to part ways just 23 games into his second season. Mainieri, 68, finished his brief tenure at 40-40 overall and 6-28 in SEC games.
Bakich addressed Mainieri’s departure in a postgame interview at Doug Kingsmore Stadium Tuesday night after Clemson lost to No. 15 Coastal Carolina.
He raved about Mainieri’s “lifetime in baseball” and said he shot South Carolina’s former coach a text after seeing the news, thanking Mainieri for what he’d done for the game and to inspire a generation of young coaches like Bakich.
Mainieri, who was retired for four years before taking the South Carolina job, has confirmed he won’t coach college baseball again.
“He’s a Hall of Famer,” Bakich said of Mainieri, per The Clemson Insider. “He’s had a legendary career. A national championship at LSU, obviously, but he’s won everywhere. I wish him all the best in retirement. ... Hate to see that, but he certainly deserves every accolade of the Hall of Fame career that he’s had.”
The Clemson-USC baseball rivalry
Bakich and Clemson went 5-1 against Mainieri’s South Carolina teams the past two seasons, sweeping the Gamecocks 3-0 in their 2025 Palmetto Series and rebounding from a Friday night loss at Founders Park to win their 2026 series 2-1 less than a month ago.
Although Bakich has embraced the Clemson-USC rivalry since his 2023 hiring and isn’t afraid to stir up Gamecocks fans, his respect for Mainieri goes beyond the fact they most recently crossed over at opposing in-state schools.
Mainieri coached 41 seasons of college baseball at St. Thomas in Florida (1983-88), Air Force (1989-994), Notre Dame (1995-2006), LSU (2007-21) and South Carolina (2025-26). He was the winningest active coach in the sport after coming out of retirement to work at USC, and his 1,545 career wins are top 10 all-time.
Bakich said he remembered following along with Mainieri’s teams for years as a young coach, including in 2002, when he was a volunteer assistant for a Jack Leggett-coached Clemson team that reached the College World Series.
Mainieri was there, too, having led Notre Dame to its first CWS appearance in 45 years. The Fighting Irish had upset No. 1 overall seed Florida State in Tallahassee to get to Omaha, which was “super impressive,” Bakich said.
“He was an inspiration to a lot of young coaches like myself, (East Carolina coach) Cliff Godwin and others when we were coming up,” Bakich said.
Bakich: Monte Lee should be USC’s next coach
Bakich also spoke highly of Monte Lee, who was promoted to interim coach for the rest of USC’s season after Mainieri’s departure. Lee had been working as the Gamecocks’ hitting coach and was previously head coach at College of Charleston and Clemson. Bakich succeeded Lee at Clemson after he was fired in 2022.
Bakich threw his support behind Lee to get the permanent job at South Carolina. Lee made it known he was interested in coaching the Gamecocks the last time their baseball job came open in 2024 but was passed over for Mainieri.
“I’m a big fan of Monte Lee as well and know he’ll do a great job in the interim and hopefully longer,” Bakich said Tuesday.
This story was originally published March 25, 2026 at 12:03 PM with the headline "Clemson baseball coach Erik Bakich reacts to Paul Mainieri stepping down at USC."
