South Carolina Baseball: Mark Kingston appears set for contract extension
By Kevin Miller
South Carolina baseball had its best season since 2016, but a Super Regional loss to the eventual national runner-up Florida Gators ended the promising season one round before the Gamecocks could make their first trip back to Omaha since 2012 when USC finished their three-year run of championship series appearances.
Carolina has made a lot of noise in the transfer portal and is also excited about their incoming freshman class, as well, so Gamecock baseball fans are hopeful for another step forward in 2024.
The positive turn of fortune for the South Carolina baseball team has resulted in some good news for the team’s head coach. On Thursday, news began to leak out that one of the topics for conversation during the upcoming Board of Trustees meeting on Friday would be Kingston’s contract situation.
Coming off of a good 2023 season and some positive recruiting momentum, that almost assuredly means that the Gamecock skipper is in line for a contract extension.
Kingston’s current contract runs through the 2025 campaign and pays him $600,000 each season. In the modern world of recruiting in college athletics, programs need the stability of a long-term coaching situation in order to entice prospects to the program, especially high school kids who are committing to spend three to five years in a program.
The first five years of the Kingston era were largely disappointing as his only Super Regional appearance came in his first season. Some speculated Kingston would not be retained after 2022, but with the vote of confidence from Athletic Director Ray Tanner heading into 2023, the good results this past spring move the Ray Tanner approval needle even further in Kingston’s direction.
Barring disaster, Kingston will be the man in charge of the South Carolina baseball program for, at minimum, the next few seasons, and Friday’s conversations around his contract should cement that fact.