It's not often in Skip Bertman's 18 years as LSU's baseball coach followed by 7½ years as the school's athletic director that he got blindsided by the unknown on the horizon.
But he was absolutely floored Thursday night when he learned the breaking news that any in-state Louisiana college students on TOPS scholarships will have to pay for all or most their tuition bills starting next year.
Jay Dardenne, new Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards' budget chief, had to play the reluctant role of the Grim Reaper Thursday afternoon. He announced the shrinking state budget leaves TOPS about $28 million short of what it takes to fully fund the program through the end of the current semester.
While no students currently receiving TOPS would lose their scholarships mid-semester, they'll have to foot the bill next year when only $65 million will be available for TOPS scholarships.
"This is going to hurt every sports program at every university in this state," Bertman said.
Why?
Because aside from football and basketball, whose expansive NCAA scholarship limits pay the complete freight for just about every player on the roster, the rest of the sports (both men's and women's) with considerably less scholarships rely heavily on TOPS to recruit in-state athletes.
The sports mostly TOPS-fueled are baseball, which has just 11.7 scholarships and women's softball, which has 12.
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