The White House played host to the men’s championship baseball teams from both the LSU Tigers of Baton Rouge and the LSU Shreveport Pilots in a special ceremony Monday hosted by President Donald Trump. For the LSU Tigers their 2025 NCAA championship victory became their second national title in three years and 8th overall.
For the LSUS Pilots, their 2025 NAIA National Championship victory capped off a perfect undefeated season, 59-0, a first of its kind achievement by any college baseball team in history. And President Trump wasted no time in recognizing both teams’ remarkable accomplishments. “It’s rare for two teams from one state to be in one room, but these are incredible teams who had amazing seasons.”
Then Trump rhetorically asked with a wry grin, “59-0 – what in the hell is that?” Trump said of LSUS’s perfect record. “Normally you have a little bad luck and lose a game or two, but (Neffendorf) deserves special recognition. “Both of these programs made history together and dominated two leagues.”
President Trump also recognized many of the Louisiana dignitaries at the event including Gov. Jeff Landry, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, who represents Louisiana's 4th Congressional District which includes Northwest Louisiana. Also recognized were Louisiana's two U.S. Senators, Bill Cassidy and John Kennedy, and other members of the state’s congressional delegation.
Both teams' coaches spoke, with LSU Tigers skipper Jay Johnson leading off, followed by Pilots coach Brad Neffendorf, who actually had a lot to say about the Tigers and Johnson. “If you think about baseball in the state of Louisiana, and I have for years, you think of LSU; very historic program built on a lot of success. What they've been able to do twice in the last couple years, you can take what Jay said and add on what I’ve said with the word investment and impact and whatnot to build two in the last years of Division 1 Baseball in the landscape we have now is incredible to me. I can also say when you add to what Shreveport has done, and college baseball right now is in the state of Louisiana.”
As LSU Shreveport Sports Information Director Matt Vines points out, the Pilots became the first NAIA team in any sport to be invited to the White House. This year’s team also won the program’s first national championship and first-ever national title for any sport at LSUS.
LSUS Pilots Head Coach Brad Neffendorf was named the 2025 Rawlings-NAIA Baseball Coach of the Year. That recognition was just one of the seven coach of the year honors for Neffendorf after the 2025 record-breaking season.
Just days after winning the 2025 national title, LSU Tigers coach Jay Johnson was named the 2025 NCAA Division I National Coach of the Year by the American Baseball Coaches Association, that too becomes the second time in three years (2023, 2025). In late July of this year.
