OXFORD | In June of 2000, just days on the job as Ole Miss head coach, Mike Bianco met Ernie LaBarge at Dino’s Pizza, a now defunct establishment that served out its final years away from the Oxford Square and at a less-celebrated location on Jackson Avenue.
Bianco was introduced on June 7, signaling his transition from McNeese State head coach to owner of the baseball reclamation project in Oxford. The program needed to be retooled throughout the operation, and that included the mechanisms to get fans engaged and excited about this new era.
LaBarge, a 70-year-old transplant from Massachusetts, was the present face of the Ole Miss Bullpen Club, a then-20-year-old organization that had seen better days in its quest to support Rebel baseball. Bianco recalls LaBarge’s passion and energy and pride. And also the beginning situation that needed serious growth.
“He was very proud but admitted the numbers were down,” Bianco recalls nearly two decades later. “He told me we had 38 or 39 members that gave $25 apiece, and I didn’t want to sound pompous or egotistical, but I told him we had to do better than that. He wanted to spearhead the support, and that was the taking-off point for what he led others to accomplish.”
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Ole Miss hosts its eighth regional under Bianco on Friday at 6:30 p.m. when the No. 4 national seed Rebels face Saint Louis — 10 years following LaBarge’s death, a decade that has seen Ole Miss reach the College World Series and complete a couple Swayze Field expansions to the stadium LaBarge cared for intently during the early years of the Bianco tenure.
“He was a huge part of this, a reason for this,” Bianco said, as he waved his arms around the pristine stadium. “He saw this as possible before it happened.”
The first Ole Miss bullpen club meeting was a brainstorming session at Smitty’s Restaurant in Oxford on March 22, 1982, and the first official meeting of the “Rebel Bullpen Club” convened a week later at the Holiday Inn with approximately 20 people present. At the end of that first season, famed author Willie Morris presented the best Ole Miss defensive player, Andy Underwood, the gold shovel — an actual shovel painted gold.
Ron Borne and coach Jake Gibbs were the early organizers of the idea that was modeled after a similar group for Ole Miss basketball. Dues were $10, and there were 152 members the first year. The club grew to several hundred members in the early years and stayed active enough until numbers dwindled during the Pat Harrison years in the late 1990s.
LaBarge and Bianco developed a quick rapport based on the same goal. The club needed to be revamped with the main mission of support and awareness. Financial contributions were appreciated but not the mission.
“A lot of those clubs start where they want to raise money and they either want to have fun and have parties or they are a fundraising arm, which is a benefit, but Ernie had the vision we had in the sense we would raise money but in doing that we want to raise awareness,” Bianco said. “We want to sell tickets. If you can have 500 boosters, most boosters have a wife and maybe two kids and you can sell 2,000 season tickets if you have 500 boosters. How we were going to spread the word of Ole Miss baseball and how we were going to develop the fanbase were the goals.”
LaBarge, with a military mindset, took a hands-on approach. He could be seen on rainy days wiping down seats at Swayze Field with a towel, and he routinely carried boxes of caps on the road to the Mayor’s Trophy game in Jackson to sell and distribute to Ole Miss fans. Long bothered by the lack of Ole Miss baseball-specific apparel, he spearheaded a mini-outlet at games for merchandise.
Cold calls, word of mouth and, frankly, winning went a long way in building the bullpen club into the largest independent college baseball support group in the nation. LaBarge spent many of his retirement days sitting and working in the Ole Miss baseball office to perform any clerical or marketing task necessary to build the army.
“Ernie stepped up when Ole Miss baseball really needed somebody,” said Tim Climer, a lifelong Ole Miss baseball fan who has generational ties to the program.
Ole Miss averaged 1,254 people at home games the year prior to Bianco but that number inflated to 4,362 when the Rebels became a national seed in 2005. The major expansion in 2009 — a year following LaBarge’s death — pushed it above 7,000, and Ole Miss is now routinely second or third nationally in average attendance. The bullpen club grew along with the support and the success.
Bianco admitted he doesn’t know who wipes down the seats on rainy days anymore but knows it happens. Things are easier and flow better because of the relatively massive support the sport receives at Ole Miss and in Oxford.
The Ole Miss bullpen club was named after LaBarge in January 2009 — nine months following his death.
And now 10 years after his passing, Ole Miss reached new heights in the regular season, winning 42 times, taking the SEC West title for the third time under Bianco and also capturing the SEC Tournament title for the first time since 2006. With the high marks and the finishing touches on the recent $20 million stadium enhancement, things continue to move farther and farther away from the modest crowds and support that defined Bianco’s initial days and seasons.
But everything needs a starting point, and that was Bianco’s press conference on June 7, 2000. That starting point needed someone to share and implement the vision, and that was LaBarge.
“That was his energy and focus,” Bianco said. “He was a kind man who gave so much and was so selfless. He changed the program. I mean that.”
