2023 Trailblazer Of The Year: Missouri Head Coach Kerrick Jackson
Image credit: Missouri head coach Kerrick Jackson (Photo courtesy of Thomas Raymond/Mizzou Athletics)
Kerrick Jackson has had his sights set on Missouri throughout his career.
He grew up just outside of St. Louis, rooting for Mizzou. When he first got into coaching, he worked at the Tigers’ camps and set a goal of becoming an assistant coach at the school. When he did that in 2010, he then imagined himself one day leading the program.
Jackson reached that goal in June, when he was hired as Missouri’s head coach.
From a personal standpoint, it was a capstone moment—an opportunity to return as a head coach to a meaningful place for him and his family. But Jackson’s journey from Memphis to Missouri is about more than a coach returning to his roots.
With the hire, Jackson became the first Black head baseball coach in Southeastern Conference history. Furthermore, he is just the fourth Black coach to lead a baseball program in college sports’ five major conferences—a group that also includes the Atlantic Coast, Big 12, Big Ten and Pacific-12—and the first since Spencer Allen stepped down at Northwestern after the 2021 season.
Jackson also is a relentless advocate for minorities in college baseball, especially in the coaching ranks. He helped form the American Baseball Coaches Association’s diversity in baseball committee and has served as its chairman since its creation in 2018.
The committee has worked to improve diversity in the coaching ranks through a professional development program and an increased focus on youth baseball.
In building his coaching staff at Memphis and Missouri, Jackson was intentional in his selections to create as diverse a staff as possible. That includes race, but also age and background. Jackson said he is also working to create a program to add a staff position for a woman.
“When you look at our staff, our staff is probably the true definition of diversity, from age to ethnicity,” Jackson said. “That part is important, it’s something I strive to do, and making sure I stay conscious and am not just hiring someone because they are a minority but is also qualified.”
For those reasons and more, Jackson is the 2023 BA Trailblazer of the Year.
Jackson has worked hard to get to this moment. He has a widely varied résumé, ranging from being a head coach at Southern and Memphis to an assistant coach to a scout for the Nationals to an agent with the Boras Corporation to the first president of the MLB Draft League.
But coaching is where his passion is and, now, he’ll get to do it in the SEC, college baseball’s premier conference.
It is a significant moment for minority coaches in college baseball. In 2022, the most recent year for which there is published data, there were 12 Black head coaches in Division I college baseball and about as many Latino head coaches.
The assistant coaching ranks are similarly homogenous. Diversity in college baseball coaching still has a long way to go to reach even the level of diversity among players, which still skews overwhelmingly white at 78.1%.
Jackson said being the first Black coach in the SEC is a blessing and a curse.
“The gift is breaking glass ceilings,” he said. “The curse is in order for someone else to get this opportunity, it is paramount that I’m successful, and that we’re successful as a staff.
“Yes, I’ve been challenged with this opportunity to make a way. It’s more the idea of the responsibility that I have to be successful.”
Jackson has been successful as a head coach. In 2019, he led Southern to the Southwestern Athletic Conference title and the NCAA Tournament, its first appearance in a decade.
Last year, in his only season at Memphis, he led the Tigers to a 29-28 record, marking their first winning season since 2017.
The challenge at Missouri will be even greater. While the Tigers have been solid over the last decade, they haven’t made the NCAA Tournament since 2012, their last year in the Big 12. They have never had a winning SEC record and have finished in the top 40 of RPI—a critical metric for NCAA Tournament selection—only once.
Jackson is confident he can get Missouri back to its proud heights as a program. Before its conference change, the Tigers made the NCAA Tournament seven straight years from 2003 to 2009. In 2006 they advanced to super regionals, and in 2012 they won the Big 12 Tournament.
High-level players like Ian Kinsler and Max Scherzer have played in Columbia, and Jackson believes the Tigers can again find and produce players to carry on that legacy.
The spotlight and expectations will be greater at Missouri. But already, in just his first few months on the job, Jackson has already seen how that can be a positive, and how many people will be watching as he and the Tigers look to push back onto the national stage.
“When you’re out and you talk with people, those that are Black folks in St. Louis or Kansas City, they say, ‘Hey, I’m not a baseball fan, but I am now,’” Jackson said.
“It’s a pride point for minorities. That carries tremendous responsibility with it.”
