This is what Mainieri said today in a news conference introducing LSU's signing class. but he was just covering for his AD Alleva. This was an AD-driven decision at both schools.
I have to ask about the Tulane series. You guys are not going to play this upcoming season. Were you disappointed by that, and were there plans to play? What is your perspective on it going forth, trying to play in the Pontiff Classic in 2020 and can it be renewed to what it was?
"I know any time there's change, it's going to create a lot of attention. I know when Skip (Bertman) pulled out of the Winn Dixie (Showdown, an annual event pitting Tulane, LSU and UNO against three teams from another state in the Superdome), that probably created a lot of trepidation with people. I'm sure when the Tulane-LSU football series stopped. it did as well.
"When I got here 12 years ago, one of the biggest challenges that I had was developing a scheduling philosophy. And one of the things that Skip told me, at that time he was the athletic director who hired me, was that he thought it was important we take our team around the state as quote, unquote the flagship university, a baseball program that had accomplished an awful lot in its history. It was good to go to different cities and take our team, and I've tried to do that. In fact this year we're going back to Natchitoches again. We've gone to Lake Charles and Thibodaux and Hammond and everywhere else in the state, so what I did was I came up with an agreement with all of the schools that if they come and play us every year, see we only have 14 midweek days. It's not like the where you could just play anybody as often as you want to do and wherever you want to, so you only have 14 midweek dates. And so trying to make it work, I presented to all the schools, all the coaches, that if they came and play us Baton Rouge every year, that every fifth or so year I would bring the LSU Tigers to their place, and in the meantime we would pay them a guarantee so it would be a non-budget item for them, and they didn't have to pay us, and then every fifth year they could charge whatever they wanted, they could make as much money, promote it any way they could and give them a little bit of an opportunity to generate revenue.
"So when it came down to UNO and Tulane, it was a little bit more complicated for me. First of all, UNO was the school that I had played at my junior and senior years, and I decided to do a home-and-away with them as a way to thank them for what they did for me in my life. And it was also right after Katrina, so I decided to have the home and away continue with Tulane to try to help them and rebuild their program and in the city of New Orleans and so forth.
"After the years have gone by, I've ended the home and away with UNO and after 12 years I just feel like it's time for me to treat Tulane the way I treat everybody else in this state, that if they want to play us here every year that we'll come and play them there every fifth year, so as you might imagine, I hear from the other schools all the time like how come you treat Tulane different than you treat us. I just kind of felt that maybe it had run its course, that home-and-away rivalry. I still want to play them, and in fact if they wanted to play us here next year they'd still be on the schedule. But they chose not to join the rotation, quote-unquote, like everybody else in the state. So that's their prerogative, and I understand that, so I did offer them the opportunity to take over as our opponent in the Wally Pontiff, Jr. Memorial Game, not for 2019 because we already had UL locked in for that year, but beginning in 2020 and it's my hope that every year thereafter, we'll play Tulane in New Orleans at the Shrine on Airline in the Wally Pontiff, Jr. Memorial Game.
"And so we'll continue to play them. We'll have a one-year hiatus and then we'll continue to play them, but it won't be here and it won't be at their place. It will be at a neutral site, and hopefully we'll have an enormous crowd to generate revenue for a really good cause."
I have to ask about the Tulane series. You guys are not going to play this upcoming season. Were you disappointed by that, and were there plans to play? What is your perspective on it going forth, trying to play in the Pontiff Classic in 2020 and can it be renewed to what it was?
"I know any time there's change, it's going to create a lot of attention. I know when Skip (Bertman) pulled out of the Winn Dixie (Showdown, an annual event pitting Tulane, LSU and UNO against three teams from another state in the Superdome), that probably created a lot of trepidation with people. I'm sure when the Tulane-LSU football series stopped. it did as well.
"When I got here 12 years ago, one of the biggest challenges that I had was developing a scheduling philosophy. And one of the things that Skip told me, at that time he was the athletic director who hired me, was that he thought it was important we take our team around the state as quote, unquote the flagship university, a baseball program that had accomplished an awful lot in its history. It was good to go to different cities and take our team, and I've tried to do that. In fact this year we're going back to Natchitoches again. We've gone to Lake Charles and Thibodaux and Hammond and everywhere else in the state, so what I did was I came up with an agreement with all of the schools that if they come and play us every year, see we only have 14 midweek days. It's not like the where you could just play anybody as often as you want to do and wherever you want to, so you only have 14 midweek dates. And so trying to make it work, I presented to all the schools, all the coaches, that if they came and play us Baton Rouge every year, that every fifth or so year I would bring the LSU Tigers to their place, and in the meantime we would pay them a guarantee so it would be a non-budget item for them, and they didn't have to pay us, and then every fifth year they could charge whatever they wanted, they could make as much money, promote it any way they could and give them a little bit of an opportunity to generate revenue.
"So when it came down to UNO and Tulane, it was a little bit more complicated for me. First of all, UNO was the school that I had played at my junior and senior years, and I decided to do a home-and-away with them as a way to thank them for what they did for me in my life. And it was also right after Katrina, so I decided to have the home and away continue with Tulane to try to help them and rebuild their program and in the city of New Orleans and so forth.
"After the years have gone by, I've ended the home and away with UNO and after 12 years I just feel like it's time for me to treat Tulane the way I treat everybody else in this state, that if they want to play us here every year that we'll come and play them there every fifth year, so as you might imagine, I hear from the other schools all the time like how come you treat Tulane different than you treat us. I just kind of felt that maybe it had run its course, that home-and-away rivalry. I still want to play them, and in fact if they wanted to play us here next year they'd still be on the schedule. But they chose not to join the rotation, quote-unquote, like everybody else in the state. So that's their prerogative, and I understand that, so I did offer them the opportunity to take over as our opponent in the Wally Pontiff, Jr. Memorial Game, not for 2019 because we already had UL locked in for that year, but beginning in 2020 and it's my hope that every year thereafter, we'll play Tulane in New Orleans at the Shrine on Airline in the Wally Pontiff, Jr. Memorial Game.
"And so we'll continue to play them. We'll have a one-year hiatus and then we'll continue to play them, but it won't be here and it won't be at their place. It will be at a neutral site, and hopefully we'll have an enormous crowd to generate revenue for a really good cause."
