BATON ROUGE – The greatest athletic figure in LSU sports history died early Friday morning.
He had a hand in 11 LSU national championships – five as a head baseball coach in 18 seasons, four more when as the school’s athletic director in seven years he hired head coaches who won nattys in four sports and was a mentor after his retirement to another head coach who won two national championships.
The best head college baseball coach ever.
Five nattys in 11 CWS trips. Six SEC championships, 870 wins. Olympic gold and bronze medals. Six-time national Coach of the Year, an award renamed as the Skip Bertman National Coach of the Year.
One of the two most influential beacons why the SEC is the undisputed King of the College World Series, demonstrating to athletic directors throughout the country their schools could have viable baseball programs by hiring the right coach and giving him the resources to win.
Former players, spread throughout the nation, became successful in every field imaginable, from coaching to broadcasting sports, from psychologists to major leaguers to doctors, lawyers, finance managers etc. No matter how many years had passed since he shared a dugout with them, they were always “his boys.”
Skip Bertman’s remarkable life ceased at just past 1 a.m. Friday at Baton Rouge General, his three daughters watching as their beloved dad’s heart took its last beat at age 88.
The reaction was predictable. There was sorrow, mixed with gratitude from Omaha to Baton Rouge and throughout college baseball.
“Coach Bertman was so far ahead of his time while leading the LSU Tigers, and as a young coach just starting my journey, I watched, studied, and admired his incredible skills of leading, motivating, teaching, coaching, and ultimately cultivating what became ‘The Powerhouse’ of College Baseball’,” current LSU head baseball coach Jay Johnson said. “Being able to share the 2023 and 2025 national championships with Coach Bertman watching is something I wouldn’t trade for the world.
“The impact he made and legacy he has left on the state of Louisiana and college baseball is beyond remarkable and will never be duplicated.”
Former Mississippi State and Georgia head baseball coach Ron Polk, who teamed with Bertman in elevating SEC baseball, was Bertman’s friend for 60 years.
“We roomed together three summers for USA Baseball, put on 50 or 60 clinics all over the country and went 35-35 against each other,” Polk said. “I’ve been a part of his life and he’s been part of mine for all our coaching careers. I’ve got so many great stories about Skip. I’m going to miss him.”
Everybody Bertman touched as LSU’s head baseball coach, then as athletic director and then a man who simply loved life, will hurt for the next few days.
Then, they will smile at the memory of how he made them laugh, even when he was honest.
Because they knew he loved them. He was always “their coach.”
Baseball was just Bertman’s classroom to teach lessons that stretched far beyond the field.
“Coach Bertman would always like to say, ‘We’re getting a Harvard education in baseball,’” longtime LSU manager Russell Rome told former LSU Baton Rouge Advocate beat writer Jim Mashek. “To me, and to a lot of the guys in my time, it was more like a Harvard education in life.”
One of the few positive things Bob Brodhead did in his rocky tenure from 1982 to 1986 as LSU athletic director was hire then-University of Miami associate head coach Bertman to resuscitate a Tigers’ program that was lightly regarded, like most of the SEC schools.
Almost all were embarrassing afterthoughts with miniscule budgets, crumbling facilities and head coaches who pulled double-duty in their athletic departments.
Like Jim Smith, whose side gig was LSU’s head baseball coach from 13 seasons from 1966 to 1979. His main job was the Tigers’ football equipment manager, who often had to make sure the football team was properly equipped daily for spring football practice before heading across Nicholson Drive to coach baseball.
Brodhead, having worked for the NFL’s Miami Dolphins, knew had a unique skill set learned from then-Miami head coach Ron Fraser.
Fraser wasn’t just a great coach but also was a master promoter after the school cut his budget.
There were giveaways for everything from trips to Las Vegas (fans had to bring suitcases to the ballpark to leave immediately if they won) to a free heart procedure.
Bertman brought some that same chutzpah as soon as he arrived at LSU in early summer 1983.
“The first meeting at LSU I had with a small group of baseball boosters called the Coaches Committee, they asked me what I wanted,” Bertman once recalled. I said, ‘I want a clean women’s restroom with diaper changing table.’
“They thought I was crazy. I tried to explain to them that if Momma doesn’t come to the game, nobody comes. If Momma can’t enjoy the restroom and change the baby, nobody comes.”
In his first five years, he conducted clinics across the state along with an assistant for 10 straight weeks during the season on the Tigers’ off day on Monday after a weekend series.
It built in his in-state talent base for LSU’s remarkable of national titles in 1990, 1993, 1996, 1997 and finally 2000.
Simultaneously, he had to educate a fan base that added newbies every year that the program took another step forward.
First, they had to learn his name. Many fans called him `Slip Bertram.’”
“I’d hear fans scream `Hey Bertram these referees stink’,” Bertman remembered. “I’d say ‘They’re not referees. They’re called umpires and they stink pretty bad.’ ”
As LSU piled up wins, national championships and led the nation in attendance to provide revenue, athletic directors around the SEC and nation began calling then-LSU athletic director Joe Dean. They wanted to know how LSU turned baseball into a moneymaker. Dean just sent the calls to Bertman, who was happy to pass on his blueprint to eager ADs his blueprint.
That was the liftoff for SEC baseball. New stadiums were built, old ones were given facelifts and salaries were raised to draw better coaches.
Since 1990, 11 SEC schools have combined to win winning 18 national titles and finish runner-up 12 times. Six national championship games or CWS title series matched two SEC teams.
When Bertman retired as head coach and transitioned to athletic director in 2001 replacing the retiring Dean, he hired four national title winning coaches during his tenure.
They were Les Miles (football), Dennis Shaver (track and field), Chuck Winstead (men’s golf) and Paul Mainieri (baseball).
Before retiring as athletic director in 2008, Bertman pushed through plans for the construction of a new Alex Box Stadium.
It opened in 2009, the field was named in his honor in 2013 and a statue of Bertman was erected in front of the stadium in 2019.
Bertman gave a 15-minute speech at the unveiling ceremony. It ended with a line that many of his former players in the crowd knew by heart and mouthed the words as he spoke.
“If you vividly imagine, heartily desire, sincerely believe and enthusiastically act on it every day, it will come to pass,” Bertman said.
And it did.
Rest in peace Skip.
You were the greatest.
But you already knew that.
Contact Ron at ronhigginsmedia@gmail.com