Coming off NCAA regional, USC baseball coach Mark Kingston signs contract extension
South Carolina head baseball coach Mark Kingston has signed a two-year contract extension.
The extension was approved by USC’s board of trustees on Friday.
Hired in June of 2017, Kingston just completed his fourth season at the helm of the Gamecocks program, leading USC to a 34-23 (16-14 SEC) record in 2021. USC hosted an NCAA regional — as a No. 2 seed — but the Gamecocks were eliminated by Virginia, who went on to the College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska.
USC athletic director and former head baseball coach Ray Tanner expressed confidence in the direction of the program under Kingston.
“I think if you look back when he got here, his first year he’s in a super regional, second year was not a great year, and then we had the COVID year, and then we’re back into a regional at home,” Tanner said Friday. “I would like to have different results, but it’s a successful program.
“And in this period that we are in college athletics it’s difficult for any coach, man or woman, to be effective in the recruiting wars without four years under contract. So we’ve tried to make sure our coaches were in that position across the board.”
South Carolina hired Kingston out of South Florida after the resignation of Chad Holbrook, now the coach at College of Charleston. Kingston originally signed a six-year contract with USC, running through June 30, 2023 with an annual compensation of $600,000.
As part of the new agreement, the buyout provisions in Kingston’s contract reset to what they were in the last four years of the deal.
Under his original contract, the university would have owed Kingston $800,000 if it decided to terminate him without cause between July of 2021 and June of 2022. With the new agreement, that buyout resets to $2.2 million. That figure lowers after each of Kingston’s remaining seasons — to $1.4 million, then $800,000, then $400,000 in 2024-25.
Under Kingston, the Gamecocks have appeared in a super regional and NCAA regional. They missed the tournament in 2019 with a 28-28 record and opened the 2020 season with a 12-4 record before COVID-19 cut the season short.
Kingston said after his team’s elimination in the NCAA regional that the Gamecocks had a “good year, but we want great years around here.” And that’s something that both he and Tanner discussed after the season ended.
“Ideally, you want to be in the postseason, be playing at home at the end of the year,” Tanner said. “And we had a good talk about that. That’s what this program is accustomed to over the years, and we’d like to have that on a regular basis.”
This story was originally published June 25, 2021 at 10:39 AM.
