Even his team’s hitting instructor is a little envious.

When the LSU baseball team takes the field today in Omaha, Neb., against the University of North Carolina in the first round of the College World Series, former Westgate standout athlete Jared Mitchell has a chance to do something it’s believed no other athlete has ever done for the Tigers — win a national championship in two sports. Within the span of six months, at that.

“I’m jealous of him a little bit from that standpoint,” said LSU assistant coach Cliff Godwin. “It would be unbelievable for him to do that.”

Bill Smith / The Daily Iberian - Memorabilia including three championship rings adorn the Mitchell home thanks to son Jared's accomplishments on the sports field and the academic field. Advertisement

Mitchell, a first-team All-State selection in both football and baseball his senior year in high school, was a wide receiver on LSU’s BCS championship team that beat Ohio State 38-24 at the Louisiana Superdome Jan. 7. He’s also the Tigers’ starting left fielder heading into the team’s first CWS appearance since 2004.

Though he’s had to talk with fans and the media about the possibility of winning championships in two different sports a lot more as the postseason has progressed, Mitchell said he doesn’t really think about it a lot.

“Honestly, I haven’t,” said Mitchell the day before the team left for Omaha. “People bring it up to me a lot. I think it’s something I’ll notice and enjoy a lot more later in life if it happens. I’m just worried about getting another championship right now.”

LSU baseball media relations director Bill Franques could not think of any other athlete in school history who had accomplished the feat. LSU has won football and men’s track titles within a couple of years of each other before — football in 2003, indoor track in 2001 and 2004 and outdoor track in 2002 — but no player has been a member of both squads in those championship years.

Even at other schools it’s hard to find reference to a multi-sport national champion. For instance, the University of Florida won national basketball championships in 2006 and 2007 and a football championship following the 2006 season, but there were no players who were on both the football and basketball teams in those years.

Godwin said that’s partly because it’s so tough to play two sports in college, especially at a major program where teams have a chance to win championships in more than one sport. Godwin was a three-sport standout in high school and was an All-Colonial Athletic Association catcher at East Carolina from 1997-2001, helping earn that school’s first NCAA national seed and came within two wins of the CWS as a senior.

“To play both football and baseball in the Southeastern Conference is tough,” Godwin said. “Hall of Famers like Bo Jackson and Frank Thomas have done it, but it’s not common.”

Jackson and Thomas were both football and baseball standouts at Auburn.

“It takes a toll on Jared, mentally and physically,” said Godwin.

But it’s something he relishes. After spending much of the spring splitting time between baseball and spring football practice, Mitchell broke into the starting lineup with the baseball team right about the time the Tigers started their school- and conference-record 23-game win streak in late April.

The team rolled through the final four weeks of the regular season without a loss, then steamrolled through the SEC Tournament and the NCAA’s Baton Rouge Regional tournament to advance to last weekend’s best-of-three Super Regional series with UC Irvine. The Anteaters finally put a stop to LSU’s win streak on June 7 — more than six weeks after it began — before the Tigers rallied to win the final two games to advance to the CWS.

Now LSU has a chance to win its sixth baseball national championship, and Mitchell can add another championship ring to the one he earned in football.

“I’m really excited,” said Mitchell, who added that the baseball and football crowds have been comparable. “It’s been exciting for us all year, especially coming out here in the latter part of the season when a lot of people were at the games.”