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Koch was so much more than just a baseball coach to me and to so many others.

He cared and cared about every player that.

He ever coached.

Not only was he a great, you know, husband is a great husband and father, but he never let that interfere, you know, with the coaching or vice versa.

I always thought my dad was a legend even before all of these accolades.

In 1957, Paul was born the second of five children in Morgantown, West Virginia, to Rosetta and Demi Winery.

One month later, his family moved to Miami, Florida, where his mother worked as an elementary school teacher.

And his father started the baseball program at Miami-Dade Community College.

It wasn't long before he became known as one of the greatest junior college baseball coaches in history.

But Paul was on his own path to greatness.

On senior year in high school.

He was named most outstanding athlete and was inducted into the school's Hall of Fame.

As a college freshman, he played baseball for Louisiana State University, where he met the love of his life.

Karen fidgets a cheerleader from Belle Chase.

They've been married 42 years and have four children and four grandchildren.

After playing one season at LSU, Paul completed his college career at the University of New Orleans.

Then he was drafted by the Chicago White Sox.

Within a few years, he began what would become a remarkable 38 year coaching career.

Paul became a wonderful coach at an early age.

Okay.

He went to school at Biscayne College.

He moved to the Air Force Academy, which of course, is a tough place to coach.

And he won there and did a great job like he did Biscayne.

Then, of course, he moved to Notre Dame and is the winningest coach at Notre Dame's ever had.

Meanwhile, in 2005, we needed a baseball coach and I was the athletic director and I called Paul and he said, Boy, I wouldn't go anywhere else except LSU.

Paul would go on to coach 14 seasons at LSU and in 2009 he coached the Tigers to victory in the College World Series national championship.

He won national coach of the year four times and was inducted into the American Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame, along with his father, Denny.

No less you not only to be a good coach, but you have to be able to get into the community and speak to the fans.

And he's excellent at that.

And he did it very, very well.

And of course, he coached well.

He said many players and many have gone on to the big leagues.

So I'm very proud of Paul.

Those who know Paul best, however, say his greatness isn't just an hour he coaches.

It's how he treats people.

Think his secret ingredient to success would be attention to the little details.

I really think that's his secret ingredient.

I think.

Too many times we see people focusing on the big picture.

I feel that I was incredibly lucky to play for him as as do many of his other players, and that's why he has the relationships still today with the players from ten years ago, 20 years ago, to sort of guys now more recent.

But it's because of the way he treated his players.

He treats his players like he treats his children.

He treats me the same way.

You know, he treats his starting shortstop.

And I think, you know, I think that's what a legend does.

I am Robin Merrick here with legendary baseball Coach Pulmonary and his beautiful home.

And we're here to talk because he is a 2022 Louisiana legend by Louisiana Public Broadcasting.

And Paul, so very glad to have you here today and so very glad that you've opened your home to us.

Well, thank you, Rob.

And I am still pinching myself about being named to this tremendous honor.

But I'm very humble about it because the people that have been that were honored in the evening were just spectacular.

And it was a wonderful evening.

It was indeed.

So, Paul, I want to start talking right off.

And I'm calling you Paul, but I should say Coach, no, please.

Yes.

So what a start off about your childhood.

Tell us a bit about that.

I know you were into a number of sports and a lot of people don't know that that you were more than just baseball.

Well, I was born in Morgantown, West Virginia.

My mother is from Morgantown.

My father is from New Jersey.

They met in college but moved to Miami, Florida, when I was an infant.

And that's where I was raised.

My father and mother were both teachers, and my father obviously was a coach as well.

And I just love sports.

I love being around my dad when he was doing his thing as a college baseball coach.

But I loved to play football.

I was a high school quarterback and the shortstop on the baseball team at Christopher Columbus High School in Miami.

I'm very proud of it.

But I was around sports and around teaching and around coaches, and that was my childhood growing up.

Now you talk about your mom and dad, and your mom was an elementary school teacher.

Your dad was a legendary, award winning junior college baseball coach.

So you've got a lot to pull from.

Tell us a bit about how they've inspired you to be a coach, to be the coach that you are today.

Robin My parents were everything to me.

I have four siblings and every night my father would make it a point to get home in time for us to eat dinner as a family.

And he would.

He and my mother would both talk about the virtues of teaching and education and and how to help make the world a better place.

You know, my siblings and I hung on every word that they ever said.

My heroes were teachers and coaches.

I wanted to be a major League Baseball player, but I knew that if I couldn't be a major League Baseball player, that I wanted to be a college coach like my father.

And I actually told my parents that when I was 14 years old.

And how many people get to live out a childhood dream Like I got.

To I know that is incredible.

At 14, you knew exactly what you wanted to do with your life and and then you did that for almost 40 years.

The reason it intrigued me so much, Robin, was because I saw the influence that my father had on young people, the way that he could inspire them and teach them what it took to be successful in life.

And, you know, I thought, you know, I always was into leadership.

Even when I was a young man.

I would read a lot of books about famous generals in the in the service or, you know, great coaches, you know, and just I was very intrigued by leadership and thought, you know, maybe someday I could make a difference in some people's lives in a positive way, like my father did.

And I hope I have I mean, I don't ever claim to be half the coach or person.

My father was, but it was what inspired me to go into it and follow his footsteps.

You know, I found it really inspiring to coach here in your home, you have a space dedicated to your father that really touched me when I saw that.

And I said, Wow, he, he, he clearly his father meant a great deal to him and still inspires you today.

Well, when my father finished coaching himself after a 30 year career, he was generally regarded as the greatest junior college coach of all time.

He had won a thousand first coach, junior college coach to win a thousand games in his career and won a national championship and had a few near misses and put about 30 former players into the major leagues.

But.

But my mother was such a rock of that family as well.

And so, you know, I just feel very blessed to have grown up in the household that I did and learned the lessons that became the foundation, really, for how I wanted to live my life.

Indeed.

So you played Major League Baseball for a year?

Well.

Minor League baseball.

I don't baseball for a year.

But you decided to come back to the high school that you graduated from and teach.

How did teaching really fit into this coaching world?

Well, again, I grew up the son of two teachers.

My mother was an elementary school teacher.

My father taught first in high school and then became a college coach.

But he was also a dean in the Education Department.

And education was just always the foundation for our for our family.

The values that that that they espoused were all centered around education.

And, you know, I got to start my coaching career and my teaching career when I was released from professional baseball back at my alma mater.

And Robert, I probably would still be there if they would have hired me to be the head coach when the head coach left.

My best friend left.

I was his assistant coach, and when he left for a college job, they passed on me for another person and it kind of vaulted me into a coaching career in college because there was a small school in Miami that was open and I was able to convince the athletic director to hire me and Saint Thomas University's name of the school.

I had earned my master's degree there at night, and that led from Saint Thomas University to the United States Air Force Academy to Notre Dame and back here to LSU.

So, you know, it's funny how when one door closes.

The.

Door opens.

It has been the case for your life as you've really gone down this path of coaching and teaching and so forth.

And as a player versus being a coach, we know that they're great players and they're great coaches.

What made you realize that the coaching was the side for you versus the players?

Well, I couldn't hit the high fastball and that kind of drove me into coach, but I really just had such a passion for wanting to work with other people and young people in particular and teach the game.

I had some great mentors.

My father, of course, was my greatest mentor in the in in baseball and in coaching.

But when I played at the university in New Orleans, I played for a coach by the name of Ron Maestri.

That became a great mentor for me.

When I started coaching at a young age, I got to know Tommy Lasorda very, very well, the Hall of Fame manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers.

That's right.

And so, yeah.

And so I had these great mentorship, this great mentorship from these three individuals, and they kind of guided me through my my career.

And it was just something that I just I loved coaching because, number one, working individually with the players, you could teach them what it took to be successful today on a baseball field.

But those lessons that you learn about what to be successful as an athlete can be carried into their their regular life and to their life after baseball to help make them really successful husbands and fathers and and in whatever walk of life they chose to be professionally.

And, you know, one of the greatest joys I get to this day, Robin, is just hearing from former players about the influence I may have had in a small part on them in their life to help them be successful in the things that they're doing, whether they're pilots in the Air Force or or any other thing that they're doing.

And so that that was really what was my inspiration and what I thought my calling in life was going to be.

You know, you talk about your former players and many of them know you as a father figure and not just their coach, but your coaching style was very fatherly.

And even as former players, you're still keeping in touch.

You're still connected.

Where did you really get the energy to be this father figure in addition to their coach?

Well, again, it was the lessons that I learned at a young age about what coaching was all about, particularly from my father.

But the players are everything.

So when my when I told my dad that I wanted to be a coach, he said to me very clearly, don't go into coaching for the Prestige.

Don't go into coaching because you think you're going to make money.

Don't go into coaching because you even just because you love sports, do it because you feel that you can help these young men become successful in life and teach them life lessons.

So that was always my focus to work individually with the players to try to help guide each of them individually, but then as a as collectively as a group.

I love the idea of at the beginning of the year was like you were handed a pile of clay and it was your job to mold it into something beautiful, and that was to develop a team that was capable of competing for championships.

And, you know, I make no apologies, Robin, for wanting to try to be successful because by being successful following the rules, using good sportsmanship, not looking for shortcuts, but by by being successful, it gave me credibility with the players so that I could teach them life lessons that were good, that would guide them through the rest of their life.

And fortunately, we had enough success in our in our career that we we got to decide to retire on our own when when we thought the time was right.

And I miss it because I miss that interaction with the players.

But, you know, I just feel very grateful and very blessed that I got to do it for as long as I did.

Absolutely.

I want to talk a bit about your days at Notre Dame.

You did some unprecedented, unparalleled things as coach at Notre Dame.

What do you account for?

How do you account for their tremendous success there?

What do you think some of those key ingredients were for that?

The same ingredients that allowed us to be successful at LSU or anywhere else, and that was you had to surround yourself with great people.

And any time you had a management position, I've always said the number one rule for success is to select the right people to be around you.

Obviously it started with the players, but also assistant coaches and support staff and everybody.

It was never one person that was doing the work.

It was everybody.

And I like to tell people all the time.

Robyn, Listen, in 39 years as a head coach, I never threw one baseball.

I never hit one baseball, I never pitched, caught a ball, ran the bases.

It was all the players.

So any any success that I may have had as a coach was only because of the efforts of a bunch of 18 to 22 year olds out there on the field.

So I was very blessed through my lifetime to have selected the right players, to put my belief in the correct players, to have great staff and support, to to help us do the things that we felt were necessary to be successful.

But it was all about the players.

So whether it was at Notre Dame or any other school, you every place had its, its obstacles that you had to overcome.

And when you spent too much time worrying about the things that you have to overcome, be it the weather at Notre Dame or the academic standards that at the Air Force Academy or whatever, the pressure at LSU, if you worry about all the other stuff, then you don't focus on the things that are the positives about each and every situation.

And so the success we had at Notre Dame is something I'm very proud of, but I expected us to be successful wherever we were because we were always going to dwell on the positives of each situation.

That's incredible advice.

What advice would you give to players and coaches at LSU now?

Simple, very simple.

To have fun and enjoy the experience.

You can get caught up in the pressure to win.

You can get caught up in other people's expectations.

You try to be somebody that you're not and try to do try harder than you have to.

And I would just tell the current coach, I would tell the current players to enjoy the experience.

All you can do is be the very best that you can possibly be.

Of all the great advice my father gave me in my life, I think the greatest advice he gave to me, Robyn, was when I was a young athlete myself in high school, and he said The only person that you ever have to satisfy is the person that you look at in the mirror every morning when you're brushing your teeth and that yourself.

As long as you know that you did the very best that you could, that you prepared yourself, that you believed in yourself, that you worked hard.

All anybody can ask you to do is do the very best that you can.

And so that would be my advice to all the players and coaches.

Just do the best you can and God willing, you'll be successful enough to to satisfy most people.

Definitely.

And have fun and hard.

And I can do it.

Speaking of fun, so you were at LSU as a student and you met this amazing cheerleader from Bill Chase.

You married her, and 42 years later, four children later and four grandchildren later.

Yeah.

How is your family?

What role has your family played in your success?

Well, my family is everything to me, Robin, and none of the success we could have had, none the less we experienced could have been possible without their loving support.

It starts with care.

And, you know, I want the one negative about the profession that I'm in is it does take me away from my family quite a bit, whether I'm on the road recruiting, whether I'm on the road with the team.

It's a it's a very consuming job, 365 days a year.

You know, the fans just see the games in the spring, but there's so much work that goes on behind in preparation for the season.

And then during the season.

So you have to have that that staple at home where you have that spouse that that takes charge.

I could her all the time.

I was the boss at work, but she's the boss at home.

There's no question about that.

But, you know, it's not easy being a coach's wife and there's there's great advantages to it, but it can be very difficult at times as well.

She was a wonderful mother.

She raised our four children.

I have my oldest son, Nicholas is a played for me at Notre Dame.

He's a he's back at Notre Dame now working in academic advisement.

My daughter, Alex, tremendous gal, just had her my my fourth grandchild, Rocco Paul.

And she's she is an institution by trade but raising a child right now over in New Orleans, my daughter Samantha, who has a tremendous practice of counseling going on.

She graduated from Notre Dame.

She has two children and I forgot to mention my oldest, Nick has my grandson up in South Bend.

Jonathan.

And then my my our fourth child, Tommy, is just starting out his dental practice.

So I have four wonderful children, four great, tremendous grandchildren.

They're the love of my life.

And without their support and understanding of what I did then, nothing could have been possible.

My family means everything to me.

Oh yeah, It shows not just for your children and your grandchildren, but your parents and your siblings.

It's just sort of just radiates from you every time we see you, coach.

So that's great to hear.

So tell us a bit about one of the things as you look back over your life in your work, what you are most proud of?

Well, I guess that's a hard question because I don't want to sound braggadocious in any way, but I think I'm most proud that I was able to balance the pressures of coaching with helping to raise our family along with Karen, and that my children turned out to be such wonderful people that my grandchildren are all working along the same right road to being very productive young people.

To be able to do that and balance it with the pressures of coaching, it really, really any field that you're in to balance that with your professional life along with your personal life and to be happy.

And I've just I just feel so blessed, Robin, really, that I have had so much good fortune in my lifetime, much more than I probably deserve.

And, you know, it's, you know, I'm just proud of the young men that we have had the opportunity to coach for decades and what they've gone on to do in their lives.

You know, former player of mine from the Air Force Academy as a coach at Air Force now, and he's leading young men and he's teaching young men, I had the great thrill to go out to Colorado Springs a few weeks back.

And he asked me to talk to the team and I talked to this current team at the Air Force Academy.

And then I get a beautiful note in the mail from one of the cadets on the current Air Force team thanking me for the influence that I had on their coach, who is their father figure now.

So since this is generational.

It becomes a generational thing.

And, you know, at the end of the day, Robin, when you think about life, you know, life is short and, you know, materialistic.

Things don't matter.

That what matters is the legacy that you leave and the amount of lives that you've touched.

And not just talking about me, I'm talking about any individual.

We should all try to make the world a better place.

And hopefully, you know, in my job as a coach and a teacher and the influence that I had on young people will influence them to lead their lives in a certain way that will then carry on and help other people.

And it gives us hope, you know, it gives us hope If if you have people out there that are doing things the right way.

Yeah, All this, said, Paul, anything you do differently.

Maybe a thing here, a little thing here, there, you know, I mean to, to specific probably even to talk about.

I wish I at times would have been a better father or a better husband and left work at work instead of bringing it home.

You know, But I, but I tried, you know, the the problem was I had that that gene somewhere in me that just wanted to win so badly that when we didn't win, it was hard to leave it at the office.

It was hard to leave it at the field.

And sometimes I'd come home and and wasn't is as as engaged with the family as I should have been.

So I think that's probably the one little regret that I would have outside of that now.

Not really.

I've tried.

I tried to live my life the right way.

I kind of tried to balance three things in my life.

Robin to to be happy.

Okay.

Number one, I tried to do the right thing all the time.

You know, I'm pretty proud of the fact that I don't think people could say that I look for shortcuts or that I cheated or I tried to, you know, gain advantage over competitors in any way.

I tried to do things the right way.

And secondly, I always strive to be as good as we could be.

You know, I believe that the American way is to strive for excellence and to prepare yourself and to work hard to achieve excellence.

And I tried to explain that to our players that were under my care and to try to help them to to have that goal in their life to achieve success and then finally to treat people the right way.

I always tried to, no matter who it was, whether it was a student manager, the trainer, the straight coach, the person that cleaned the locker room, you know, and the players, whether they were the superstar or the bullpen catcher too, to make them all feel that they had an important role with the team.

And so, you know, those those are the work that's those are the the basic conditions that I tried to live my life.

And and I think if people just think about that, you know, just try to to do the right thing all the time, to try to achieve excellence and be the best that they can be and to treat other people the right way.

They have a pretty good chance to live a happy life.

That's right.

I would agree.

Absolutely.

So, Coach, you're 65 years old.

What's the next chapter like for you?

Well, that's a good question, and I wish I had the right answer for that.

I know it involves golf.

Well, I've been playing quite a bit of golf, I must admit.

You know, I retired a little bit earlier than I expected to rob.

And I had some some health issues that I was dealing with and I needed I needed I don't regret the decision I made because I felt like I needed to make it physically.

And I just I just needed to take a break.

But after taking a break, I actually feel pretty good now and I feel still feel young.

So I don't know if I had a couple of chances to go back into coaching this summer.

I turn those opportunities down.

I'm not sure if I'll go back into coaching or if there's something else out there in life that maybe I can do to maybe help influence people again in some capacity.

But I just don't know what it is.

And in the meantime, what I'm doing is I'm enjoying playing golf, meeting a lot of new people out at the golf course and spending a lot more time with my children and grandchildren than than I got to do when I was actively active as a coach.

So I don't know what the I'm sure that the big Tiger in this guy's got something planned for me, you know, and I'm just not sure what it's going to be yet.

But I just can't emphasize enough just how how blessed and privileged I keep using that word, but I just feel so grateful for the opportunity that I've had in life.

I get to work at four amazing institutions.

I get to coach literally hundreds of amazing young men, have a beautiful family, great friends, tremendous friends.

I've met so many interesting people.

Every place that I've been, my life has been enriched.

And of course, getting to finish here at LSU was was an honor that is indescribable.

And I love living in this state.

I love the people of this state and I couldn't ask for anything more.

And then to receive honors like this is is beyond my wildest dreams.

You know, whatever is next, we'll be cheering you on.

Coach.

Well, thank you.

So much for letting us come in and share more with you.

I'm very happy to have you here and thank you very much.

Awesome.

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