J. Stanley “Skip” Bertman, who transformed college baseball from a casual spring pastime to a highly competitive, money-making, big-time sport at LSU and across the Southeastern Conference, has died.

LSU Sports Information Director Michael Bonnette confirmed the news to The Advocate. Bertman was 88.

Hired in 1984, Bertman coached LSU to five NCAA championships in a 10-year period between 1991 and 2000, and guided the Tigers to 11 College World Series appearances during his 18-year tenure as LSU baseball coach. His title teams were in 1991, ’93, ’96, ’97, and 2000.

He retired with an 870-330-3 record, which didn’t approach that of some of his peers, but no one coached more national champion teams since the NCAA put a cap on scholarships. That leveled the field from the handful of schools (Southern Cal, Texas, Arizona State, and Miami, where Bertman played and coached) that loaded up on baseball grants-in-aid while most NCAA programs were little more than low-pressure afterthoughts. Ironically, he would eventually turn down multiple overtures to coach at giants Miami and Texas to stay with the Tiger program he had built to the zenith of the sport.

By percentage, Bertman’s teams won at an overall .724 ratio, and his 328-159-2 record in the SEC was .673. In 13 NCAA tournaments, the Tigers were 89-29, a record-setting .754 percentage.

Bertman coached 599 games at Alex Box Stadium, a concrete WPA project built during the Depression. There, Bertman was 490-108-1 for an .818 winning percentage, and LSU won its way to the College World Series nine times.

As athletic director, a position he got as a compromise figure acceptable to differing factions on the LSU Board of Supervisors when Joe Dean retired, Bertman oversaw the construction of another baseball arena, now known as the new Alex Box Stadium/Skip Bertman Field, along with renovations to Tiger Stadium, completion of the Cox Communications Academic Center, the new football operations facility, a softball stadium, and new practice facilities for the basketball and gymnastics teams.

In April 2026, Flamingo Park baseball field in Miami Beach, Florida, was renamed in Bertman’s honor. Bertman graduated from Miami Beach Senior High School and coached the school’s baseball team from 1962-74.

Bertman will forever be remembered for remaking baseball into a major sport at LSU and across the Southeast.