South Carolina Baseball set to retire legend’s jersey; Bouknight joins Tanner, Bass

The list of legends that have played baseball in Columbia is almost too long to try to compile. Names like Justin Smoak, Michael Roth, and Jackie Bradley, Jr. all played for the Gamecocks and were flat-out incredible. However, only one South Carolina baseball player has won the Golden Spikes Award given annually to the top individual player in the country (although Ethan Petry might have something to say about that soon).

Kip Bouknight won the Golden Spikes Award in 2000 after going 17-1 with a 2.81 ERA and was a first-team All-American, a first-team All-SEC selection, the SEC Player of the Year, and the SEC Male Athlete of the Year. On Tuesday, long-time Columbia sports journalist Teddy Heffner reported that the University of South Carolina baseball team would be retiring Bouknight’s jersey.

According to Heffner, the Gamecocks will retire Bouknight’s jersey in a short ceremony prior to Friday night’s game against Auburn, weather permitting. Bouknight’s #14 jersey will be the third jersey to be memorialized on the Founders Park fence. Technically speaking, the #14 will not be retired, just Bouknight’s jersey, as the South Carolina Athletic Department passed a policy in recent years against fully retiring numbers.

Bouknight’s head coach while playing with the Gamecocks (and the current University of South Carolina Athletics Director) Ray Tanner is expected to be part of the ceremony. Tanner is one of the two other jerseys retired by the South Carolina baseball program (#1). Ron Bass, who owns a mountain of pitching records for the school, is the only other player to have his jersey retired (#10).

After his college career, Bouknight had a short stint in professional baseball. In recent years, he has gotten into broadcasting and has been on the call for numerous South Carolina baseball games on the SECNetwork and SECNetwork+.