Belief and Resources: Rebuilding Missouri Baseball

The Southeastern Conference (SEC) represents what many would agree, the strongest conference across collegiate athletics.  This reigns especially true come baseball season as the league can count on earning more NCAA tournament bids than any other conference and maintain dominance in hosting ability.  In fact, each SEC program has earned the right to host a regional at least once since 2021, except for one.  In fact, the Missouri Tigers haven’t reached the NCAA tournament since joining the SEC in 2013.  Since joining the nation’s toughest league, the Missouri baseball program has experienced turmoil at the Head Coaching position.  In replacing long-time skipper Tim Jameison, who led the Tigers for 26 seasons, Steve Bieser felt the perils of competing against programs with championship aspirations.  Bieser notched a plus .500 record each season in Como, though failed to produce a winning-conference record at any point during his tenure.  

Enter Kerrick Jackson, the at-the-time head man at Memphis who served as an assistant under Jameison for four seasons after pit stops on staffs ranging from JUCO to Fairfield and Nicholls State.  After finding success on staff at Missouri, the St. Louis native was named Head Coach at Southern before working his way to Memphis.

Jackson knows the uphill battle he has at Missouri, after all, the Tigers have won just 12 conference games in his first two seasons at the helm.  In a league featuring teams competing for national championships, routinely hosting regionals and sweeping national awards, the Tigers historically stand out, and for the wrong seasons.  

Coach Jackson doesn’t balk at the circumstances, though.  He’s dealt with adversity and the noise that comes with it before.  “When I came here as an assistant coach, I wasn’t good enough to be an assistant in the SEC and after being here for multiple years, multiple starters heading up to the big leagues. We were ranked as high as 12th of the country and our recruiting classes the last three years were all ranked in the Top 25. So people have always told me what I couldn’t do.”  

Simply, Jackson doesn’t get lost in the noise, in fact, it motivates him.   “When I went to Southern, I didn’t know what it was like to play in the SWAC and I wasn’t going to be able to win there. So I don’t get caught up in the idea of what people say. If anything, it drives me to prove people wrong, and then wonder where those people are when things go right.” 

Notably, Jackson won the SWAC in his second season at Southern after winning only nine games the season before.  Though success at Missouri has been a slower build, Jackson received a public boost of support from one of the few voices he does listen to.  Missouri Athletic Director Laird Veatch urged fans, alumni and the Tiger community to give the program time, recognizing the difficulty of finding immediate success at Missouri.  “He’ll keep after it, he’ll keep doing it the right way. It’s not an overnight thing. We will keep supporting him”, Veatch echoed to at ‘Zou to You’ in last spring.  Veatch took ownership, adding “This is an incredibly competitive sport in this league, and that is an area that we have not invested like we need to”.

Veatch hired Jackson at Memphis and loyalty is a two-way street for the duo.   Jackson recalls telling Veatch Missouri was the only job he would leave Memphis for and the support in the program’s darker days means a lot.   Of his AD, Jackson gushed “It’s a guy that gets it… AD’s don’t do that. They don’t come out when the public is crying and they don’t come out and say well we can’t evaluate him until we support him first.”  

Loyalty runs deeper than inside the walls of Missouri, though.  Jackson took pride in playing Southern in the Andre Dawson Classic in 2025.  “It’s one of those bittersweet things. Coach Crenshaw was my assistant there and you know in the role that I have, I still want to do what I can to bring and spotlight HBCUs.”  The Tigers also played fellow HBCUs Florida A&M and Alabama State in the event.  Missouri also welcomed the SWAC’s Arkansas Pine Bluff to Columbia in 2026.

With loyalty in place and resources on the way, Jackson knows it’s time to collect victories and begin shifting the narrative surrounding the program, whether he buys into the noise or not.  In 2026, the Tigers obtained SEC-experienced reinforcements in the likes of Jase Wiota from South Carolina and Jamal George via Texas A&M.  Jackson will be quick to state, though his program isn’t going to make their hay in the portal each season.  With that, Javyn Pimental returns from Tommy John surgery after missing all of 2025, while fellow arm Josh McDevitt will look to eat more innings for the Tigers as they look to pick up steam.  Former Virginia Pitching Coach Drew Dickinson has joined the staff in the same role in an effort to boost Pimental, McDevitt and the remainder of the Tiger staff.

The Tigers are still looking to compete in the mighty SEC, though, so not just anyone can gather a role on this club.  “Drew (Dickinson) is a competitor and he’s going to force you to meet him at that level, and if you can’t meet him at that level, you’ll just won’t fit”, Jackson said.  

All in all, as the Tigers erase a forgettable recent history, Jackson is still abel to take solace in the team’s sweep of Texas A&M last season.  “You don’t just sweep at College Station. I don’t care what type of team they are. You just don’t do that at that place”.  Jackson took pride in his group’s resolve, though wishes they had found their groove a little earlier in a season that proved to offer less promise than expected. 

As the program works its way towards competing in the SEC, Jackson will work with the resources he is given.  The homegrown Head Coach will aim to navigate one of the tougher jobs in the country, enjoying loyalty and reasonable expectations as he does.