Marc MacMillan Talks Lessons Learned from Coaching Under Mike Bianco
Marc MacMillan is out of Oxford and settled into South Carolina.
The former Rebel and five-year Ole Miss baseball volunteer assistant coach left Ole Miss earlier this year, accepting the head coaching position at Charleston Southern University.
Arriving at Ole Miss in 2014 as the Director of Operations, a position he served in for two years, MacMillan was promoted to the assistant role in 2016. He's seen the Mike Bianco-led program firsthand for the past seven years.
What are his biggest takeaways? What did he learn that he'll now implement in Charleston? MacMillan's first thought is to go all the way back to 2014, his first game back in the Ole Miss dugout:
"I remember being at Stetson, our first game. It's my first time in the dugout. So, how's Mike (Bianco) going to be? How am I going to be? What am I doing?" MacMillan reflects. "It's a couple of minutes before first pitch and there's a cup on the ground in the dugout. Mike bends over and picks it up, throws it in the trash. I was like, 'man – if our head coach can do it then I can do it.' It was just something small that stuck with me the whole time I was there."
For Mike Bianco, it's the small things: cups on the ground, the perfection of the diamond at Swayze Field and the food served to fans in the Diamond Club. As media, those of us in the press box can be quick at times to label Bianco as a control freak. That may be true, but it's part of the reason he's built such an impressive program in Oxford.
These sentiments are echoed by MacMillan:
- Don't walk around with blinders on
- Always try to see the small things you can improve
- Everyone counts, from the very bottom all the way to high-level administration
"It's this whole piece. It's everybody. There's all these little pieces to the puzzle that amount to success," MacMillan said. "It's everyone. It's administration, academics, facilities and ticketing."
With MacMillan's departure, he becomes another branch to the Bianco coaching tree, a series of coaches that have done pretty well for themselves over past years.
Of course, Dan McDonnell (Louisville) and Cliff Godwin (East Carolina) are the most successful and well-known members of the Bianco tree, but MacMillan is now the greenest.
Bianco is used to the turnover in ranks – it's a sign of a successful program. When it's time for someone to move on, MacMillan says Bianco is right there in your corner:
"He was very supportive. You could sense the happiness in his voice, the sincerity and the willingness to help out in any way," MacMillan. "He was kind of like the guy in the corner with a boxer, pumping me up and making sure I knew I was ready. It meant so much."
Amid a global pandemic, MacMillan's interview process moved fast. The weekend after his first conversations with Charleston Southern, he was on a jet to South Carolina. The next week, he had signed his name in ink.
What was Bianco's final advice? Simple: there is no final advice.
"We've continued to talk and we will. There was no lasting words of advice because we will certainly stay in touch," MacMillan said. "There's an open line of communication between Mike and the staff and then vice versa."
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