Kentucky baseball, in LSU super regional, still feeling ex-coach Keith Madison's impact

LEXINGTON, Ky. — When Keith Madison looks at the Kentucky baseball program now, 20 years since he stepped down following a 25-year tenure as coach, it's like peering into another world.

Upon his hire in 1978, baseball was an afterthought at Kentucky. Four decades later, UK opened Kentucky Proud Park, a sparkling, state-of-the-art facility that cost $49 million to build and has hosted two NCAA regionals.

"There was a time in my career when we had the worst salaries, the worst facilities, the worst weather and everything," he told The Courier Journal earlier this week. "But you know what? I loved every minute of it. And if I had to do it over again, I would do it all over again."

Now, Madison watches as the program he helmed for a quarter-century, in the NCAA tournament super regional for just the second time, tries to knock off No. 5 seed LSU starting Saturday at 3 p.m. ET and clinch a spot in the College World Series — a place the Wildcats have never been.

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'God was speaking to me'

Madison assumed the reins of the UK baseball program in the summer of 1978. But his position differed from his peers in the SEC in a notable respect.

"I was a part-time coach," he said. "I didn't even get benefits. And I only made $8,000 a year."

Needing to supplement his coaching income and support his young family with his wife, Sharon, Madison found work in "poultry public relations" with an owner of 27 KFC locations, and later did PR for Midas, before he started a sports flip calendar business.

A few years into his tenure with the Wildcats, he said he was offered the head coaching job at Western Kentucky University for double his Kentucky salary. He turned it down, was eventually made a full-time coach at UK and went on to win a program record 735 games before he stepped down following the 2003 season.

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Madison remained busy in retirement.

After a year and a half in Kentucky's development office — primarily working on the Robinson Scholarship program, which funds scholarships for first-generation college students from the Appalachian region of the state — he began working for SCORE International, a Christian ministry, and made more than 30 mission trips to the Dominican Republic, where he hosted free baseball clinics with friends in the sport.

"I remember standing on one of those dirty, dusty baseball fields and thinking, 'This is what God wants me to do,'" he said.

In 2012, Madison founded Inside Pitch, a magazine published six times a year that aims to help amateur coaches sharpen their skills.

But he never strayed too far from the UK baseball program. He tried to give his successor, John Cohen, space to make the program his own, but Cohen always asked for counsel. And he grabbed coffee and discussed baseball every month with Gary Henderson, who replaced Cohen.

'His fingerprints are all over me and our team'

Madison's relationship with the program has deepened since Nick Mingione took over in 2016. Mingione asks the former coach to show his face as often as possible.

"He actually gets upset with me if I'm not," Madison said. "He wants me to come out on the field before the game. He wants me to hang out with his players. He is the most welcoming guy I think I've ever been around."

Every week for seven years Madison has led a Bible study for UK's baseball coaches. It's a small example of one of Madison's primary passions: supporting coaches. At least four times each week, he sends 52 group texts to baseball coaches around the country.

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"It's just encouraging them and helping them through coaching struggles and daily struggles," he said. "Coaches, a lot of these guys, man, they think their ADs hate them, they think their players hate them, they think their wives hate them. It's crazy, because coaches — especially head coaches, they feel pretty alone sometimes when things aren't going well."

After UK won its NCAA regional Monday at Kentucky Proud Park, Mingione had Madison sit beside him for a few minutes during the postgame press conference. In a sense, Madison always has been at Mingione's side. Having Madison to lean on, Mingione said, is an asset like no other.

"To have a coach like that — a former coach who has been through the battles — not only mentor me spiritually, but as a coach, it's meant the world to me," Mingione said after his team's practice Friday in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. "There's no question that his fingerprints are all over me and our team."

Madison won't be in Baton Rouge for the LSU series, but he'll make his 35th trip in the last 36 years to the College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska, coinciding with the American Baseball Coaches Association's annual meeting. Madison is a member of the board.

He hopes Kentucky will be there to join him at long last.

"I can tell you that every former player and every former coach, including myself, would be ecstatic. I'll probably weep, even though I'm not a crier," Madison said, "because we've been close, but we've never made it there (to the College World Series). It would be such a great thing for Big Blue Nation if Kentucky made it."

Reach Kentucky men’s basketball and football reporter Ryan Black at rblack@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter at @RyanABlack.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Kentucky baseball in LSU super regional: Keith Madison impact on Cats