Bianco boys won’t ride dad’s coattails

Published 12:15 pm Friday, May 6, 2016

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">This makes sense.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Or it makes as much sense as anything on the recruiting trail.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But LSU has a commitment from a hot-shot rising baseball player named Drew Bianco.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Bianco is a junior in high school, so we’re talking the 2018 season before he actually suits up for the Tigers.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But it was likely predestined.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">He should have plenty of purple and gold something or another running through his veins.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">After all, his father, Mike Bianco, was a feisty catcher and team captain on the early Skip Bertman teams that built the foundation for the dynasty that the Tigers became in the 1990s.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Mike was later was an assistant coach on three of Bertman’s five national championship teams, before taking his first head coaching job here at McNeese State in 1998.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Yeah, of course, where else was Drew going to end up playing?</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Geeeeeauxxxx … oh, but wait a minute.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">You knew something didn’t fit.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Dad’s story didn’t exactly end with three of the best years McNeese baseball has ever seen.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">No, it attracted some attention.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">He was named Ole Miss’ coach for the 2001 season.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">He’s</span> <span style="font-style: italic;" class="R~sep~ACopyBody">still</span> <span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">there, 16 years later.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">He just took two of three games from LSU last weekend in Oxford, Mississippi.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">He’s Ole Miss’ winningest all-time coach. He got the Rebels to the 2014 College World Series for the first time in 42 years.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Never mind that.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Do the math on 16 years for a high school junior.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Drew may have heard tales of dad’s playing career at LSU, mostly rumor and innuendo. He’s surely met Bertman at some point in time.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">And if he didn’t, growing up with dad was a close approximation. Many have imitated Bertman over the years, but it comes by Mike Bianco naturally — the slow walk, the mannerisms, the inflections — he’s always been a dead ringer for Skip. He’s a good bit shorter, so maybe he’s a Bertman bobblehead come to life.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It’s been a running gag every time Mike goes back to Baton Rouge and emerges from the enemy dugout.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But Drew’s entire life has been spent in Oxford — Hotty Toddy — his baseball bearings begin and end at the Rebels’ Swayze Field.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">And now Drew, who at 6-foot already is a good bit taller than dad, is going to defect and is heading to LSU?</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">That must make for some testy conversation at the Bianco family dinner table.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">You think?</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">You’d be wrong.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Oh, perhaps dad would prefer his son not sign with an SEC West rival.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Drew, a second baseman who projects as a shortstop with power at the next level, is considered one of the top 100 prospects for the Class of 2018 by the magazine/web site Perfect Game.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Maybe not the kind of guy you relish facing in your division.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Mike didn’t know Drew would choose LSU.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But he was pretty sure it wasn’t going to be Ole Miss.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Mike understands any dad whose lifelong goal would be to coach a talented son.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But Mike isn’t one of them.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Anybody who knew Bianco around here when he was head coach at McNeese won’t be surprise at his reasoning.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Mike and his wife Camille have four boys among the five children in their brood.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Mike told RebelGrove.com — which you’ll recognize as a pro-Ole Miss outfit — that he and Camille had this discussion a good 15 years ago.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">If the opportunity ever arose, they didn’t want their sons playing for dad.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">“I’d like them to go somewhere where they make it or don’t, sink or swim, on their own,” he said. “They don’t have to be the coach’s son. You’re not playing because you’re the coach’s son and you didn’t fail because you’re the coach’s son. Let them be Drew Bianco and Ben Bianco and Sam Bianco.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">“I’ve always gone back to if they’re good enough to play here they are good enough to play anywhere. I want them to make their marks on their own. I don’t want them to always be the coach’s son in the different areas of their college life … there are advantages to it, but there are also disadvantages. The point is, that’s coach Bianco’s boy. Coming here they never get away from that.”</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">So when LSU began recruiting Drew, he took a trip to the new Alex Box Stadium and fell it love with it the same way dad fell in love with the old Alex Box 30 years ago.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">So, as Bianco laughed, he’ll someday be in the odd predicament of “hoping he goes 3-for-3 but we win all three games.”</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">So far, it doesn’t sound like there are any losers in this story.</span>

<p style="text-align: center;">—

<p class="p1">Follow <span class="s1">Shannon Roberts</span> on Twitter at <a href="https://twitter.com/ShannonAmPress">twitter.com/ShannonAmPress</a>

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