After the most successful season since joining the Southeastern Conference, the Missouri baseball team will be experiencing some changes.
Assistant coach and recruiting coordinator Kerrick Jackson announced his decision to step down last Wednesday after five seasons with the Tigers.
Jackson cites family as the main reason for his move, as he will be moving to Kansas City, where his wife, Talia, has received a promotion with the engineering design firm Burns & McDonnell. Jackson will be taking a step back from the demanding hours of college baseball to take on a different role — as a father.
With two sons, ages 4 and 6, a lot of consideration was put into the decision. Jackson’s wife received the offer from work in January, but the final decision came in March.
“(Talia) expressed her desire for me to basically come home and be a daddy,” Jackson said. “She just didn’t feel that me being absent from their lives that much was useful for anybody. So basically, at that point, it was, ‘All right, if we’re going to do this, we have to make sure that we’re going to be in a good situation.’ If I’m stepping down from my career, stepping down from the job, I want to make sure we’re not going backwards.”
Jackson’s plan is to “be a daddy for the first year” and he said he won’t be getting “back into baseball at (the college) level” anytime soon.
Jackson joined head coach Tim Jamieson in 2010 after three years as the Midwest scouting supervisor with the Washington Nationals.
Since Jackson’s entry into the program in August 2010, the Tigers have gone 128-153 overall, with two above-.500 seasons. Only one of those five seasons saw Mizzou finish with a .500 conference record: 2015.
“At the beginning, it was rough, but I think through the time and effort that we put in over the last four years of recruiting, we’re starting to be there,” Jackson said. “Our freshman class this year was ranked 12th in the country, and then I think they manifested that and showed that when they stepped onto the field.”
Despite a 30-28 overall and 15-15 SEC record, the Tigers weren’t selected for the NCAA tournament. With a 54 RPI rating at the end of the season, Mizzou was considered as one of the first two teams left out, along with North Carolina.
However, compared to last season’s 20-33 overall, 6-24 SEC record, the Tigers have seen an exceptional turnaround.
Although many may see it as more difficult to leave when the team is on the up-and-up, Jackson is happy to be leaving at a high-point.
“I told my wife it was going to be hard to leave either way,” Jackson said. “But it’s much easier for me to leave when we’re trending up than if we would’ve had another season like we did last year.
“Obviously, it’s a little bit hard walking away from, but we’re heading in the right direction with the things that I felt we were able to do. So, at the same time, I can look back and say at least I’m walking out and feel that we’re at a pretty good spot.”
Jackson said he will stick around to help his boss find his replacement in the meantime.
Jamieson’s contract, though, is set to expire June 30, and he has been meeting with new athletic director Mack Rhoades in the last few weeks to discuss his future with the program.
Considering the season the Tigers had, Jackson had some strong feelings toward the possibility of Jamieson being removed from his position.
“There’s no question (Jamieson should stay),” he said. “I think that where we’re at as a program and with the things that he’s done, it’s pretty phenomenal. More importantly, if there’s a team out there that’s Division I that played the caliber of conference that is the SEC and had a one-year turnaround that we did, show them to me.”