Editor’s Note: This interview has been edited for clarity.
BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) – LSU baseball pitcher Paul Skenes talks to BRProud sports reporter Aileen Hnatiuk about being on the Tigers’ team and his mindset when he’s on the mound.
Aileen Hnatiuk: Starting pitcher at LSU. When you hear that, how does that make you feel?
Paul Skenes: It’s a dream come true. Something I told myself is that all these guys are here to watch me pitch, whether they know it or not, that I’m going to show them that they came here to watch me pitch. The first game, Feb. 17, was a three-clock game and there might’ve been like 6,000 people here. Like, the stadium wasn’t full, it was like 50 degrees — it was not a nice day to pitch but that day alone was a dream come true for me.
Hnatiuk: What was the process like and why LSU?
Skenes: When I entered, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I started leaning toward the SEC, talking to all of those coaches, visited a bunch of SEC schools, and I settled on LSU just because I had played here before.
Hnatiuk: This is obviously the hardest conference to play baseball in. How have you been able to be as successful as you have been when you step on the mound?
Skenes: When you step on the mound, it’s me versus you but I think in the day-to-day it’s me versus me. And I’ve been able to realize that I think a lot more than a lot of other college baseball players. That just makes it so much simpler to go out there and just compete with a, you know, a free mind. I’m living a lot of little kid’s dreams right now, that’s not something that I forget.
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