UPDATED WITH STORY: Getting signals from LSU's baseball coach

LSU baseball coach Jay Johnson spoke Tuesday at a St. Mary Outreach fundraiser. He wasn’t here to talk about subtracting from the change-up or getting the bat on Uncle Charlie.
Johnson, speaking at the Petroleum Club of Morgan City, talked about team-building. And the full-house audience had reason to listen to a coach who has won nearly two-thirds of his games over a 12-year career and brought home a national championship for LSU in 2023.
On Tuesday, Johnson was part of the St. Mary Outreach team at an event that raised money with the dinner and an auction of sports memorabilia and other items.
Outreach is now in its 40th year as “a private, nonprofit, emergency service agency,” according to the event’s program. Founded as a food bank, it now offers “a clothing closet, hygiene, cleaning supplies, baby diapers and formula, adult diapers, and rental and utility assistance.”
At 47, Johnson is only a little older than St. Mary Outreach. His head coaching career includes two years at Nevada, six at Arizona and the last three at LSU. The 2023 LSU national championship followed two College World Series appearances by Johnson teams while he was at Arizona.
Johnson’s 2023 team had some flashy talent, including pitcher Paul Skenes and outfielder Dylan Crews. They were the first two players chosen in the 2023 draft, a first for college teammates. Skenes signed with Pittsburgh and Crews with Washington, and they both advanced quickly to the majors.
But the ’23 team wasn’t a group of big heads. Johnson said the team was a no-drama outfit full of hard workers, fulfilling his first key to success: surrounding yourself with good people.
“You’re only as good as the players surrounding you,” he said.
The second rule is developing each player, and that means spending time with him to come up with a plan to make him successful. And that can take 10,000 hours of deliberate practice and training.
“Can we get 1% better on a daily basis?” Johnson said.
Next is staying focused on now instead of getting carried away by dreams of championships.
“We all do a bad job of projecting a path into the future,” Johnson said.
And then comes repetition, being consistent with a program.
Johnson may have first realized the place LSU occupies in collegiate baseball when he walked into a press conference room crowded with reporters.
“I talked about providing a level of baseball that everybody in Baton Rouge and our state would be incredibly proud of …,” Johnson said.
“By doing common things in uncommon ways, we’ll capture the attention of the world.”