How Mainieri plans to lean on USC baseball staff to navigate NIL, transfer portal

Three years isn’t a long time. But in the world of college sports, three years can feel like an eternity.

These last three years in particular have been some of the most transformative in the industry’s history. Name, image and likeness along with the transfer portal have fundamentally altered college sports.

And South Carolina’s new baseball coach Paul Mainieri has little to no experience with either.

Don’t fret, though, Gamecocks fans. As Mainieri makes his return to college baseball after retiring in 2021, he assured folks at his introductory press conference Thursday that he plans to “lean on my coaching staff extremely hard.” Together, they’ll help USC’s baseball program navigate NIL and new-age recruiting.

Here’s how Mainieri said assistants Monte Lee, Terry Rooney and John Hendry will split up these responsibilities and educate Mainieri along the way:

Monte Lee, associate head coach/hitting coach

Mainieri and Lee had a few interactions back when the former led LSU baseball and the latter coached at Clemson. But they didn’t know each other all that well until this week.

Lee served as an assistant on Ray Tanner’s USC baseball staff from 2003-08. Tanner, now the athletic director, gave Mainieri some background on Lee and explained how he kept the roster together — even picking up a couple high school and transfer portal commitments — as interim head coach since Mark Kingston’s departure.

Mainieri and Lee had “a very blunt and honest conversation” lasting two hours, Mainieri said Thursday. They found themselves aligned in all things philosophy: coaching, hitting, fielding and pitching.

In confessing he’s not sure how long he’ll be coaching at South Carolina, Mainieri also declared that he hopes Lee will be ready to take over once he’s permanently retired.

Terry Rooney, pitching coach/recruiting coordinator

Mainieri compared Rooney to the Energizer Bunny, saying he has “the enthusiasm of 100 people.”

The Gamecocks’ new pitching coach and recruiting coordinator previously worked with Mainieri at Notre Dame and LSU. He helped bring the nation’s No. 1 recruiting class to Baton Rouge after Year 1. That group helped LSU make the Men’s College World Series in Year 2. Though Rooney left to take the helm at UCF that offseason, his recruits went on to win the national championship in Mainieri’s third year at LSU.

“The only way I could have done it (become USC’s head coach) is if Terry joined the staff with me,” Mainieri said. “Because I have so much confidence in his ability to coach players on the field. He coached a pitching staff that went to Omaha, and then left the pitching staff that won the national championship for us the next year. And as a recruiter, there’s just nobody that’s going to outwork him.”

John Hendry, assistant coach

Hendry just wrapped up a stay in Omaha with the Virginia Cavaliers.

Mainieri has known Hendry since he was a child, running around Wrigley Field and Yankee Stadium while his father Jim Hendry worked in the Chicago Cubs and New York Yankees front offices. Hendry, like Mainieri, grew up around the sport and developed a wealth of knowledge.

When Mainieri approached Hendry about the opportunity in Columbia, Mainieri learned how much work Hendry has done with the transfer portal. The coaches at Virginia would get upwards of 20 text messages per day from Hendry about prospects who entered the portal with an evaluation of their game tape and a suggestion that they target the recruit to join them in Charlottesville.

“I’m going to depend on these guys,” Mainieri said of navigating this new age of college baseball. “I don’t know exactly how this all works, but I’m learning a lot. I’ve learned a lot in the last three days with these guys. ... And I’ll become more and more involved as time goes on.”