Mainieri is not LSU SS Kramer Robertson's only coach

BATON ROUGE — LSU shortstop Kramer Robertson’s mother, Kim Mulkey, became one of the greatest women's basketball players in history at Louisiana Tech in the early 1980s out of Hammond High. The former point guard is also one of the top women’s coaches in the country at Baylor. Robertson’s father, Randy Robertson, played quarterback at Byrd High in Shreveport and at Louisiana Tech.

Kramer Robertson played point guard, quarterback and shortstop at Midway High in McGregor, Texas. He signed with LSU to play baseball in 2013 and did not develop into a regular as he hit .212 in the 2014 and ’15 seasons.

On Thursday, Robertson was named a second team All-American shortstop by Collegiate Baseball magazine a week after being named a first team All-Southeastern Conference player as he led LSU with a .363 batting average in SEC games this season. On Friday, he will lead LSU into NCAA postseason play as the No. 1 seed Tigers (42-18) host No. 4 seed Utah Valley (37-21) at 2 p.m. in Alex Box Stadium.

“I think he chose the right sport,” his mom said in a phone interview Thursday. “But I always thought his best sport would be football. He was a Johnny Manziel type in that he could throw very accurately and beat you with his feet. There were some mid-major colleges interested in him as a quarterback.”

Robertson never quite grew into football as he stands 5-foot-9 and weighs 160 pounds.

“His dad is 6-foot-2, and I’m 5-4,” Mulkey said. “I was hoping he’d be taller. But when it became obvious he was not going to be 6 feet, baseball was just the better sport for him. He always had great range for his size. The talent was there. He was blessed with athleticism.”

That showed in his freshman season at LSU in 2014 as he made some dandy defensive plays at second base. He struggled at the plate, though, with a .200 average through 30 starts. His starts dwindled to 12 in 2015 as a sophomore when he missed several weeks with an elbow injury and finished with a .232 average. Robertson was not LSU coach Paul Mainieri’s first choice at shortstop going into the 2016 season. He was not the second choice either.

LSU opened the season Feb. 19 with Robertson at second base, freshman Trey Dawson at shortstop and junior college transfer Cole Freeman at third base. After the opening weekend, Mainieri moved Freeman to shortstop as Dawson was clearly not ready for college pitching in going 0-for-7 with five strikeouts. Freshman O’Neal Lochridge of Lafayette took Freeman’s spot at third. Robertson remained at second. By March 2, Mainieri had another idea after Freeman made a costly error at shortstop in a 5-4 loss to Sacramento State on February 27. He moved Robertson to shortstop and Freeman to second and had to put freshman Chris Reid at third as Lochridge suffered a back injury and has missed virtually the entire season.

The third time was the charm. Robertson is fourth on the team in hitting with a .316 average, first on the team in doubles with 17, second in runs scored with 53 and third in stolen bases with 14. He has also committed just 11 errors though 233 chances.

“Kramer’s had a tremendous season, and it’s been so heartwarming for me as a coach to see him evolve as the player and person that he has evolved into.” Mainieri said. “It’s just all come together for him. I always had great hopes for Kramer that he was going to develop into the ballplayer he is now. Always thought it was in him, but there was something that was keeping it from coming together for him. Sometimes, it’s just a little bit of maturity.”

Mainieri did expect to see more Mulkey in Robertson early on, though.

“One of the things that appealed to me about recruiting him in the first place was because he was Kim Mulkey’s son,” said Mainieri, a quarterback in high school and the son of a college baseball coach. “He was a quarterback in football. He was a point guard in basketball. And he was a shortstop in baseball — typically the leadership positions for high school teams. And he’s the son of a pretty aggressive, successful coach. And I think that’s probably what shocked me the most during the first couple years. He didn’t carry himself with that kind of aura about him. And I kept waiting for it to come out.”

Robertson was also behind All-American shortstop Alex Bregman, who was the second pick of the first round of the Major League Baseball Draft last June by the Houston Astros, and a host of other veteran, talented infielders.

“He had to wait his turn,” Mulkey said. “And last year he was injured. The way baseball is you have to be on the field a lot and learn how to deal with failure. I just knew it was only a matter of time.”

Baseball was not a total reach for Robertson. His mother was the only girl in the Dixie Youth league for 11- and 12-year-olds and the Pony League for 13- and 14-year-olds in Hammond. And yes, she made All-Stars.

“Once he got out of high school, I always told people when he focuses on baseball only, you’re going to see his game explode,” she said. "He just had to relax and play."

Robertson was forced to relax — or at least sit and watch on the bench — last year as LSU reached the College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska. He did the same thing in 2014 except for one start against Houston in the NCAA Regional.

“You never like sitting on the bench, and I did it for two years,” Robertson said. “It motivated me to not want to have to sit over there anymore. It made me want to be a better player and earn the right to be out there. I think I’ve done that. Now I want to produce and see if I can’t help us advance past this regional.”

The LSU-Utah Valley winner advances to a 7 p.m. game Saturday against the winner of No. 2 seed Rice (35-22) and No. 3 seed Southeastern Louisiana (39-19), which play at 7 p.m. Friday.

“I think it’s just been a maturation process of knowing what my game is and what I need to do to be successful and just being out there every game and getting in a rhythm,” Robertson said.

In the process, Robertson has become one of the team’s main leaders.

“He’s taken more initiative to assert himself as the leader,” Mainieri said. “This is clearly his team along with Jake Fraley (junior center fielder) and Alex Lang (sophomore pitcher). I look at him as really a coach out there on the field, which is what I always wanted to look at him like.”

Robertson credits his first two coaches — his mom and dad — and his older sister Makenzie, who played basketball at Baylor.

“I just grew up around athletes and around a winning atmosphere my entire life,” he said. “Everything we did, we always competed against each other. And I guess all their competitiveness just rubbed off on me.”

When he was 10, Robertson watched his mom’s Baylor team beat LSU, 68-57, in the first round of the Final Four in Indianapolis, Indiana, and then win the national championship with an 84-62 win over Michigan State.

“Seeing the kind of success that all three of them had just pushed me to be better than I ever thought I could be and makes me strive to be the best athlete or anything I can be in life,” he said.

And if he’s not striving, he’ll hear about it, which was the case when he made two errors against Tennessee in the SEC Tournament last week in Hoover, Alabama. Robertson has been at most of the games in recent months.

“She’s never been one to be easy on me,” he said. “When I have a bad game, she’s the first one to tell me. And she’s my biggest fan as well. But definitely the coach comes out of her any time I mess up. She’s pretty fiery, and she gets on me pretty good.”

And so does Mainieri, particularly in Robertson’s first two seasons.

“I don’t think I’ve ever wished her not to be at the game, but definitely I’ve told here to take a step back and that she’s not my coach,” Robertson said as a smile crept across his face. “That she’s my mom first. She does a good job of understanding that. When she needs to take a step back, she does. She’s starting to realize when it’s too much and when not to cross that line.”

Mulkey also realizes when she’s watching a good team, too.

“I've been in Baton Rouge more the past two months than in the previous 35 years," she said. "And this little team has energized that LSU fan base. They love how they battle. No one expected this kind of season out of them.”

And few, other than mom, expected the little, battling shortstop to have this kind of season either.

Glenn Guilbeau covers LSU sports for the USA TODAY Network of Louisiana. Follow him on Twitter @LSUbeatTweet.