COMMENTARY by DOUG IRELAND, Journal Sports
One of the endless list of great things about Skip Bertman: he was always willing to help.
Not just at LSU, where he was the architect of a baseball dynasty that has continued a quarter century after he left the dugout; and where he was the athletic director who fostered the still-running golden era of Tiger sports.
Not just in Baton Rouge.
Or even Louisiana. He is treasured in his hometown of Miami, around the Southeastern Conference, in Omaha, and at every level of college baseball from coast to coast, border to border.
But most of all, in every corner of Louisiana.
We’re reading and watching and hearing tributes pour in from every seat, from inside the dugout with him to the left field bleachers and far outside the ballpark, after he passed away early Friday morning, surrounded by family, at age 88.
From big leaguers to players and coaches on little league teams, there is a bottomless trove of tales about conversations with consequences, wit and wisdom passed along, kindnesses extended, and Midas touch moves that won games, and hearts.
They’re not just tinted purple and gold.
You can count on one finger times the fan base of Tulane’s Green Wave has good memories of anything LSU did. But for years, and especially today, they recall how minutes after his final game as LSU’s coach, a loss to Tulane in a 2001 regional final that lifted Rick Jones’ team to its first College World Series, Bertman took the occasion to speak to those young men, praising their accomplishments to that point and encouraging them to soak in the Omaha experience, and sparkle in it.
The people were always more important to him. Right alongside the game, and upholding its code of respect.
What he did to nurture baseball around Louisiana is profound. Until Bertman got LSU out of the doldrums, college baseball didn’t exactly capture the attention of people from Shreveport to Thibodaux, or Lake Charles to Ruston and Monroe.
He hired coaches from here. He recruited players from here. He took his teams everywhere, and welcomed the state’s colleges to Alex Box Stadium. Because it was good for everybody.
Bertman played local teams in their ballparks, from Tigue Moore Field at USL/UL Lafayette to Brown-Stroud Field in Natchitoches, at Sheehee Stadium on Centenary’s campus, from J.C. Love Field in Ruston to Ray Didier Field in Thibodaux. His teams broke a barrier when they drove across town to visit Roger Cador’s Southern Jaguars. He brought the Tigers to Fair Grounds Field in Shreveport, venerable Bringhurst Park in Alexandria, and would have happily played in an empty rice field in Crowley if asked.
The year after Airline High School product Todd Walker led LSU to the 1993 CWS crown, Bertman welcomed Billy Allgood’s NAIA Louisiana College Wildcats to the Box. It turned out to be an historic night when LC prevailed 7-5, the first and only time an NAIA team beat a reigning NCAA champ. It wasn’t a catastrophe. Those Tigers got back to Omaha, one of 11 visits there, five ending in glory.
The last CWS triumph came in 2000, four months after Houston swept a three-game series at LSU, and sports talk radio lit up with angry fans. The game’s passed him by, said one caller. Not at all. Not ever.
Former Northwestern State coach John Cohen will forever remember the sight of Bertman bounding across the grassy I-49 median near Bunkie, after LSU’s team bus broke down and Skip was due to speak at a pregame fundraiser in Natchitoches. For love of the game, to help a young coach lift up his program.
Another NSU coach, the Demons’ version of Neil Armstrong, owes his incredible career to Bertman. Bossier City native Jim Wells became a College Baseball Hall of Famer after massive turnarounds with the Demons and Alabama’s Crimson Tide. And after he was Skip’s assistant from 1987-89.
“You start thinking about people who impact our life, and there aren’t that many outside of your parents. Coach Bertman was right up there,” Wells told NSU publicist Jason Pugh Friday.
“When he got hired at LSU. I was coaching Loyola (College Prep in Shreveport) and the All-City Team comes out. (Next to that story in) the right-hand corner, I read, ‘LSU hires Skip Bertman from Miami.’ I didn’t know Skip Bertman, but I know Miami is good. I started writing him from then on, and I finally got on his staff. It’s crazy to think I became good friends with him, and he became such a big part of my life.”
In those formative three seasons with the Tigers, Wells soaked in every moment. When he applied for the Northwestern job in 1989, Bertman made a pitch to NSU president Bobby Alost, and Demon baseball was forever elevated because Wells noticed everything his mentor did.
“Everyone knows he was brilliant and a great coach, but he had a great sense of humor. He was one of the funniest people in the world. A day didn’t go by when I didn’t think of things he said in meetings and how he coached the team. I used to love to stand beside him and pick up what he said, even if it was just him mumbling to himself.
“Every time we played each other, we would get together for lunch. My assistants would get mad at me. Once we were lucky enough to beat them, and he asked me a question about something in the game, and I told him. My assistants said, ‘Coach, we’ve got to play them again.’ It didn’t matter. Whatever he asked me, I couldn’t not answer. I couldn’t disappoint him.”
Because Skip Bertman rarely, if ever, disappointed anyone else.
Contact Doug at sbjdoug@gmail.com