Louisville baseball head coach Dan McDonnell (Photo courtesy of X/@@ericcrawford)
Louisville baseball head coach Dan McDonnell entered the 2025 season with a chip on his shoulder. He believed his 2024 squad should have been chosen for the NCAA Tournament, and he felt like the program he’d built over 19 years was being disrespected time and time again.
The new world with NIL was challenging to navigate, making it tough to keep consistency within the program. The Cardinals’ last trip to the College World Series was 2019, and McDonnell was beginning to wonder what it would take to get back.
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On Sunday, McDonnell and his Cardinals punched their ticket back to Omaha, the annual site of the College World Series. They took out Miami in their three-game Super Regional, winning 3-2 on Sunday for the sixth CWS berth in program history.
“Yes, there was a chip on my shoulder. There was a chip on our players’ shoulders. There was just a chip on this program’s shoulder,” McDonnell said in his postgame press conference. “… We were disrespected as a program, players, coaches. Even commitments were just backing out and dropping like flies, as if we weren’t the program that we built here. So, you wake up the next day ready to compete. You just start stacking days. Just start winning days.”
The Cardinals didn’t win many days toward the end of this season. They lost seven of their final 10 regular-season games, and were eliminated from the ACC Tournament by Pitt in the opening round. That dropped Louisville’s record to 35-21.
But that was enough to earn selection into the NCAA Tournament, where the Cardinals were placed into the Nashville Regional as a No. 2 seed. The host was Vanderbilt, the No. 1 overall seed. Following an opening-game victory over East Tennessee State, Louisville shocked Vanderbilt, 3-2. Wright State then eliminated Vandy and faced Louisville in the regional final, which the Cardinals won, 6-0.
That gave them hosting honors for the Super Regional against Miami, which finished ninth in the ACC standings while Louisville ended up 10th. Of the nine ACC teams selected for the NCAA Tournament, only Louisville remains.
It’s a postseason run few saw coming. And for McDonnell, he says it wouldn’t have been possible without Jesus.
He also shared in the postgame press conference that he’s 159 days into reading through the Bible. He started January 1 with his brother, his wife, friends from New York and friends from The Citadel, where he played from 1989-92 and reached the 1990 College World Series, the first time a military school made the trip to Omaha. He recited a poem he’s memorized after hearing it from Tara-Leigh Cobble, the “Bible Recap” founder: “Two hearts beat within my chest, the one is foul, the one is blessed. The one I love, the one I hate. The one I feed will dominate.”
“I just had to make a decision: What was I feeding my heart?” McDonnell said. “And for me, I had to get into the Word … 159 days. And in one sense, you say, ‘Well, just because you read the Bible doesn’t mean you go to Omaha.’ But for me, it does. For me, it’s what’s in my heart. It’s how I can love on others, and how I can treat others, and how I can coach others.”
McDonnell said he’s also memorized Psalm 23 and has come to a place where he constantly wants to share about his faith and what he’s learning through walking with Jesus.
“You just hope that you can encourage others,” he said.
And he encouraged everybody to read the Bible.
“I would just encourage people to join a church, get in a group study. … Getting in the Word is very intimidating and it’s not easy doing it by yourself. So fortunately, I’m doing it, like I said, with a group, I’m using the app. I’m no Bible scholar, don’t act like I’m one. But I’ll tell you, these last 159 days, hasn’t been perfect but I would encourage others to get in the Word,” he said.
Though his study of the Bible may have reached a deeper level as of late, McDonnell has been reading God’s Word for years. He told the Fellowship of Christian Athletes in 2015 that he first did a Bible study at Ole Miss, which he joined as an assistant coach in 2001.
“Coach McDonnell understands the influence a coach has, and he capitalizes on the opportunity to not only make great players on the field, but great men off the field,” Louisville FCA chaplain Chris Morgan said. “He instills character, integrity and excellence, and always points back to Christ.”
Louisville will begin its College World Series campaign against No. 8 overall seed Oregon State at 7 p.m. ET Friday.
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