BATON ROUGE — Maurice Hampton was fully prepared to skip LSU’s Jan. 17 celebratory trip to the White House.

It wasn’t a political statement from the two-sport freshman who played safety on LSU’s national championship team. The center fielder in him simply couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d already missed too much baseball with the season fast approaching.

LSU head coach Paul Mainieri talked Hampton out of missing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but Hampton found a way to get his cuts in anyway. Hampton took batting practice early before the buses left for the airport and was hitting under the lights at 10 p.m. once LSU returned from the nation’s capital.

“I know I’m behind,” Hampton said as LSU began full-team practices. “I know there’s guys who have put in a lot more time with baseball while I was doing football, so I’m just trying to make up the time that I’ve lost as best as I can.”

Nobody can doubt Hampton’s dedication to making his two-sport career work. He turned down a signing bonus of $1.8 million during last summer’s Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft to come to LSU. He said he was totally dedicated to football in the fall, but he spent his off days at Alex Box Stadium getting some individual work in.

Hampton began his freshman season playing only on special teams, but he played an important role down the stretch of LSU’s run to the national title. He started in LSU’s win over Arkansas and played a lot in LSU’s three-safety package along with Grant Delpit and JaCoby Stevens.

“I would say I took advantage of the opportunities I got playing behind some really good safeties,” Hampton said. “Not playing a lot wasn’t easy, but I learned a lot from those guys.”

LSU won the national championship on a Monday night in New Orleans against Clemson. Hampton was admittedly a bit tired the next day, but he made it back to Baton Rouge in time to attend a baseball team meeting the next afternoon.

Balancing two sports will always be an exercise in time management. Mainieri, Hampton and head football coach Ed Orgeron all met prior to the baseball draft to discuss how the prized recruit would divide his time between football and baseball.

Promises were made that Hampton would be allowed to fully devote himself to football in the fall and baseball in the spring.

Mainieri and Orgeron haven’t spoken this spring to confirm those plans — Orgeron has been a busy recruiting between visiting the White House and signing a six-year, $42 million contract — but the assumption is that the agreement stands.

Hampton said he spoke to safeties coach Bill Busch during the trip to Washington D.C. Mainieri said Busch told Hampton that he doesn’t need to participate in spring practices, but he’d like him to attend meetings when he can to avoid falling too far behind.

“Honestly I feel like I’m still in a dream,” Hampton said. “Everything has been going so smooth. It’s been life changing, and I’m just having a good time.”

At this point, Hampton’s full attention is on competing with sophomore Giovanni DiGiacomo for the starting center field job.

Hampton was considered an elite prospect coming out of high school. He brings top-end speed to the outfield and is viewed as a potential power hitter from the right side.

Despite all that natural talent, he’s got a lot of work to do after not taking part in fall baseball. There’s no way to simulate the difficultly of hitting live pitching, especially Southeastern Conference-caliber pitching, from individual work alone.

“You can tell he’s going to get better as a hitter, because he’s so athletic and strong,” Mainieri said. “Mechanically, he’s a little tight. The more he plays, the better he’ll get.”

“I’m a bit rusty,” Hampton added. “The ball looks like a golf ball in the outfield and it’s even smaller at the plate. I’m just trying to get adjusted back to everything. Taking it day by day and step by step.”

LSU has two massive holes to fill in the outfield after losing stalwarts Antoine Duplantis and Zach Watson to the draft. Two starting jobs are up for grabs in the outfield with two weeks of practice to go before opening night.

Hampton has the talent to be a difference-maker, and the faster he can knock off that rust, the better.LSU Tigers defensive back Maurice Hampton Jr. (14) stops University of Oklahoma Sooner’s Jalen Hurts for he first down during the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia on Saturday, December 28, 2019. (Dennis Babineaux/Special to the American Press)