AD Jeremiah Donati explains decision to retain Paul Mainieri as USC baseball coach
Arguably the worst season in South Carolina baseball history wrapped with a firestorm. It ended with program records for losses (29) and SEC losses (24). It concluded with a first-year head coach being asked about his job security and if he was planning to fire any of his assistants.
It was the antithesis of what coach Paul Mainieri preached after the 66-year-old hall-of-famer came out of retirement last June and took over the Gamecocks program.
The hiring of Maineiri — the 2009 national championship coach with LSU who stepped in at USC as Division I baseball’s active wins leader — was made by athletic director Ray Tanner. For the third time, it was Tanner, the legendary USC baseball coach, choosing his successor.
Tanner, though, stepped down just months into Maineiri’s tenure, replaced by former TCU AD Jeremiah Donati. It was Donati who evaluated the 2025 baseball season and opted against making a snap leadership change.
“The decision was this,” Donati told The State. “At this level, you don’t hire coaches on one-time tryouts. You make a commitment to the coach. You invest in the coach. And you’ve got to give them a little runway to prove that they can lead the program.
“Sometimes when you’re transitioning,” Donati added, “there’s a lot of things that need to be changed within the program — whether it’s from the culture or the personnel. And so those just take time.”
Though USC started the season 9-0, the Gamecocks were swept by rival Clemson and kept regressing, in large part, because of a pitching staff that finished the year with the highest ERA (6.41) in program history. South Carolina allowed double-digit runs 16 times this season and gave up 20-plus runs twice.
“Obviously it was a disappointing season and we, as a program, expect more,” Donati said. “We will get better. And it’s not one thing, it’s a lot of things. We need to coach better, we need to play better, we need to recruit better as a program. And so we’re committed to doing those things. We’ve got plans to do those things and have already started working through those plans.”
Those plans do not include Mainieri tweaking his staff — notably pitching coach Terry Rooney and assistant coach Monte Lee. That, Donati noted, is part of the patience he’s taking with a coaching staff that has been on the job for less than a year.
He mentioned that Mainieri’s hiring in mid-June last year hampered South Carolina’s ability to revamp its roster.
“One could argue that we probably didn’t exactly get the pick of the litter in the transfer portal,” Donati said. “While we used NIL dollars, we probably weren’t properly resourced. We’ve made some course corrections there and I think that Paul will have the resources to acquire talent in some places that perhaps we need it the most.”
Though it would have been financially strenuous to move on from Mainieri — his contract buyout was $5.3 million — Donati was clear that the decision to retain his head baseball coach had nothing to do with money.
Still, there was little fan support for Mainieri by season’s end.
“I know our fan base is upset,” Donati said. “And, candidly, I’d be worried if they weren’t upset because it tells me it matters to them. It tells me they care. And no one cares more about this program than the people involved.”
The program, though, has faced plenty of criticism. On May 22, 247Sports affiliate The Big Spur published a story that said, among many things, that Mainieri cut back on USC’s time in the weight room, failed to practice basic fundamentals, failed to use analytics and publicly told players “how bad they were.”
Asked about the story, Donati said it included “a lot of stretches and half-truths in there, and a lot of very-subjective sources.”
“We have people around the program at all times,” Donati added. “If there was anything to be alarmed about, I would know immediately.”
Though one of the most-prominent programs in college baseball history, boasting legendary coaches in Bobby Richardson, June Raines and Tanner, who combined for 11 College World Series appearances and a pair of national titles, South Carolina’s dominance has been dormant for over a decade.
Since Tanner jumped to athletic director following the 2012 season, the Gamecocks have appeared in three super regionals and failed to appear back in Omaha.
“We also need to be honest with ourselves about where we find ourselves as a program,” Donati said. “We have a proud tradition and a proud history here and we certainly want to get this program going back in a great direction. ... But it’s been quite a long time since we’ve found ourselves in Omaha.”
Donati continued: “If you look back over the last eight years or so, we just haven’t seen the type of upper-echelon SEC success. And, so, we need to build back towards that.”
So, what’s going to happen this offseason to allow South Carolina baseball to right the ship in 2026?
Well, Donati said, South Carolina will arm Mainieri with more NIL resources and also summer access — basically paying tuition for players to enroll at USC for the summer semester — for incoming players and allow them to get involved in the strength and conditioning program earlier.
“That was one change that Paul was pretty adamant about wanting to make,” Donati said of the earlier summer enrollment and access.
“Back to the coaching transition — coaching transitions are hard,” he added. “And if you look at every place Paul’s been, he’s turned those programs around. So while I don’t love the ‘P’ word, we do need to be a little patient to make sure that he’s got the plan in place and he’s properly resourced to get where he needs to go.”
This story was originally published May 31, 2025 at 7:50 AM.
