As Sunday night bled into Monday morning, after Kentucky baseball recorded the final out to reach the College World Series for the first time, setting off a dogpile on the field and a delirious celebration among the record home crowd, Nick Mingione dropped to his knees in a corner of the dugout and said a prayer of thanksgiving. When the Wildcats coach got back to his feet and turned around, athletic director Mitch Barnhart was waiting for him.
“With his arms open,” Mingione says, “and we just started hugging. We were like little kids, jumping up and down and hugging. And I’m talking about deep, strong, squeezing man hugs. I was crying. He was crying. It was awesome.
“He told me he was proud of me and proud of our program and, look, you do want to hear that from your boss. He stood by us in the good and the bad, and that was a special night for everything to pay off. I wanted so badly to make him proud because of all the time, resources and patience he’s invested in this program. I wanted him to know it was the right call.”
Two years ago, Barnhart probably had to squint to see that. Mingione moved into the $49 million, state-of-the-art Kentucky Proud Park in 2019 but struggled to fill it. The coach got a three-year contract extension in 2021, but by the summer of 2022, he was five years removed from his only NCAA Tournament appearance. Plenty of people wanted him fired. Most wondered what, exactly, Barnhart saw in a coach who’d posted four consecutive losing records in SEC play and did not seem particularly close to erasing an annoying bit of trivia: that every team in the league had made a College World Series except the Cats.
“To continue to have to hear that was getting a little old,” Barnhart says. “I don’t know if getting to Omaha was the be-all, end-all, but people just wanted us to get into the conversation nationally. You want to be relevant. You want to feel like you belong in the neighborhood. The new stadium gave us a chance. I felt like Nick gave us a chance, too, and I thought he was closer than it looked from the outside. But when you’re trying to build something special, it’s such an intricate puzzle, and it’s amazing how sometimes when just one piece is missing, it’s so difficult to finish.”
ROLL OUT THE BIG BLUE CARPET #WeAreUK x #RoadToOmaha pic.twitter.com/fHbN4MPQWm
— Kentucky Baseball (@UKBaseball) June 10, 2024
The picture finally came into focus last season, when Kentucky won 40 games, hosted and won a Regional and advanced to a Super Regional for just the second time in school history. The last few pieces clicked into place this season, as the Wildcats won a school-record 45 games overall and 22 games in SEC play, earning a share of the league championship and a No. 2 national seed in the NCAA Tournament — where they’ve yet to lose a game. Kentucky rolled through the Regional and Super Regional with a 5-0 record, all at home, where almost 8,000 people stayed past midnight Sunday to see and celebrate history.
Keith Madison might’ve been the happiest man in the stadium that night. Madison is the program’s all-time leader in wins — he went 735-638-5 from 1979-2003 — and now he’s part of UK’s radio broadcast team. He’s also one of Mingione’s best friends and mentors.
“Some really good coaches have tried to do what Nick just did,” Madison says. “I’m excited for all the teams Gary Henderson coached and John Cohen coached and I coached for many, many years, that worked so hard to get to that point but just could not get over that hump.”
The question, of course, is how these Cats finally did what none before them ever could. But there’s not just one answer. Their style of play — great defense and gritty, aggressive offense — has a lot to do with it. Kentucky ranks last (by a lot) among the eight teams in the College World Series in home runs. Tennessee has hit 173 bombs while the Wildcats have hit just 84. But UK leads all teams in Omaha in stolen bases and sacrifice bunts and ranks second in fielding percentage. The decisive run in the clinching game Sunday night came on a Pete Rose-style dive into home plate as outfielder Nolan McCarthy scored from second base on a wild pitch.
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Roster construction is a huge part of this story as well. Kentucky has a perfect blend of veteran players it recruited and developed out of high school — everyday starters Emilien Pitre, Devin Burkes, James McCoy and McCarthy as well as starting pitcher Mason Moore (9-3) and ERA leader Ryan Hagenow (1.96) — and high-impact transfers who fit Mingione’s approach. The Cats’ top two hitters, Nick Lopez (USC) and Ryan Waldschmidt (Charleston Southern), home run leader Ryan Nicholson (Cincinnati), SEC All-Defensive third baseman Mitchell Daly (Texas) and top pitchers Trey Pooser (College of Charleston), Dominic Niman (Central Connecticut State), Robert Hogan (Texas A&M) and Johnny Hummel (Erskine College) all came from the portal.
“Exceptional recruiting,” Madison says, “and Nick and his staff did a great job of really vetting these guys. They didn’t just say, ‘This guy has power and this guy has a slider and we need that.’ They went deeper than that. They went into the person and the fit, not just from an athletic standpoint but also a culture standpoint. They have a unique offensive and baserunning philosophy, and not every player, not every good player, can fit into that system. Fit matters so much, and they really nailed that with this group.”
But what about the rest of the story? The part where Mingione fundamentally changed — more than once — to keep this ship from sinking? That’s really the secret to this resurgence.
Mingione, 45, had never been a head coach at any level when Barnhart hired him in 2017. He’d been Cohen’s assistant at Kentucky in 2006 when the Wildcats won their only other SEC title and at Mississippi State in 2013 when the Bulldogs were national runners-up. He inherited a good team from Henderson that first season and won 43 games, made the first Super Regional in program history and was named national coach of the year.
“I was very naive,” Mingione says. “I was like, man, that was easier than I thought. Boy, did I get humbled quickly.”
Kentucky narrowly missed the NCAA Tournament his second season, then nose-dived in Year 3, posting the worst record in the SEC. His fourth season was cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic, which prompted the first of two big program overhauls.
“I really used that time, when we were not even allowed in the facility at all, to reevaluate,” Mingione says. “Our culture had not gotten good; in fact, it started to go bad. So I really looked into every phase of our program — the way we evaluated, the way we recruited, the way we did everything — and I tore it apart.
“I called former players to get feedback on the program because I really believe that feedback is the breakfast of champions. I asked some former players I really trust, ‘Don’t tell me what I want to hear, but what I need to hear.’ They shared some things about me as a coach, that I wasn’t as connected to the players as I was my first year, that I wasn’t using some of the gifts I’ve been given. We made some big changes and it set us off down the right path.”
Kentucky narrowly missed the NCAA Tournament again in 2021, but Mingione was convinced he had a Super Regional team heading into 2022. Then his top two starting pitchers, Cole Stupp and Darren Williams, suffered season-ending injuries in rapid succession, and that season was derailed.
“I was in a dark place,” Mingione says. “I was beat down. I just had to surrender, because I obviously couldn’t do this on my own, so I got on my hands and knees and prayed, ‘Lord, help me.’ It was time to make more changes.”
He remembers the exact moment the tide finally turned for good: May 15, 2022. He’d lost the first two games of a series at South Carolina and Kentucky had a miserable 9-17 SEC record. For the final game of that series, Mingione decided to shake things up. He turned over the offense to assistants Nick Ammirati and Austin Cousino, a former UK All-American, and he ceded dugout duties to Ammirati. Mingione traded places and started coaching third base that day against the Gamecocks.
“I realized Nick Mingione at his best is a guy who is encouraging and who is in the fight with his players,” he said. “When I was in the dugout — although I didn’t realize this at the time — I was like a policeman or an enforcer. I wasn’t catching our guys doing good. I was just being a cop. I was separated from our players, and when I got back into that coaching box, got back in the fight with them out there on the field, our culture got better. And you know what? Sometimes just getting the head guy out of the dugout is a good thing, too, because it became a little bit more free and loose in there.”
Kentucky won that day at South Carolina, then won their final regular-season series against Auburn, then got hot as the No. 12 seed in the SEC Tournament and reached the semifinals. But those Cats still (narrowly) missed the NCAA Tournament. It had been five years since they’d made the field, and Mingione knew the pressure was on — and there was still one more tweak to make.
“When we had our end-of-year meeting, I didn’t think I was getting fired, per se, but I did owe Mitch an explanation,” Mingione recalls. “He could see the momentum, could see that we were gaining traction, but he also needed to hear from me what adjustments we were going to make. At that meeting in 2022, I flat-out told him, ‘Mitch, in order for Kentucky baseball to be relevant, I have to figure out the RPI. I’ve done a bad job, and we keep being told we’re just one or two wins short, and I don’t want to be in that position ever again.’ I told him I would do everything in my power, talk to all the RPI gurus, and I said, ‘Mitch, if I don’t figure this out, Kentucky baseball will not be relevant and I will not be your coach.’”
Mission accomplished. Thanks in part to some strategic scheduling (quality mid-major opponents and more road games) Kentucky has had a top-three RPI and top-five strength of schedule each of the last two seasons. The Wildcats are 41-23 in the SEC — tied with Arkansas and Tennessee for the best record in the league — since that day in 2022 when Mingione started coaching third base.
Omaha🤝Cats
A match made in heaven.#WeAreUK x #MCWS pic.twitter.com/PAGJW7tHSI
— Kentucky Baseball (@UKBaseball) June 13, 2024
“It’s really cool to have a head coach on your side,” McCarthy says. “And it also kind of makes the dugout a free space to just kind of cheer on your team with nothing else to worry about. Coach Mingione is a really smart guy, and nothing is by accident. I remember when I came on my first recruiting visit — and things weren’t going great at the time — he had this whole formula for how we were going to win a national championship. I sat in his office and he had a whole PowerPoint presentation about it. He had everything lined up, outlining exactly the pieces we needed. He knew what it would take, and when I look at this team now, I think we’ve got it all.”
Mingione, who was just named national coach of the year for the second time, shudders to think what might have happened (or not happened) if he worked for anyone else. Not many ADs would’ve given him the time to move around all those pieces until they fit. But patience might be Barnhart’s most prominent trait. He gave Rich Brooks and Mark Stoops more time than most of the fan base would’ve liked, and in both cases, those men eventually elevated Kentucky football beyond its historical station.
“Anybody that knows the way I’ve walked with coaches understands that, by and large, we’re a place that wants to grow people into success,” Barnhart says. “Obviously, we needed to take a step forward, but I think one of the great things Nick does is self-evaluation and seeking feedback. As he’s matured as a head coach, he leaned on and listened to a few people he really trusts and said, ‘Help me get better. What do I need to do differently?’
“He listened to all those things and he humbled himself and he made adjustments — to his team, to his staff, to himself and his approach. And so the other night, in that big moment, as there’s this rush of joy and relief and tears, I remember saying to Nick that I was super, super proud of him. Because I am.”
As Madison joined that celebration in the wee hours of Monday morning, he was suddenly transported back in time, to a day in 1984 when he vividly remembers sitting on the old wooden bleachers at Shively Field, which became Cliff Hagan Stadium, which served as Kentucky baseball’s home for almost 50 years. Practice was long over and a couple of his players asked what he was doing out there.
“Dreaming about what this place could be and what this program could do,” Madison remembers telling them. “This is my fault as much as anyone else’s, but I could never really sell Cliff Hagan or C.M. Newton or Larry Ivy (past UK athletic directors) on that dream. I was not a good enough salesman. But Mitch Barnhart came here already with that dream in his mind. And Nick made that dream come true. Those guys in the past never really bought into that dream, and I always kind of felt like I was on that journey by myself. The great thing for Nick is he’s not walking alone.”
(Photo: Jordan Prather / USA Today)
