Kingston calls approving third-assistant proposal a 'no brainer'

SOUTH CAROLINA GAMECOCKS BASEBALL

One of the bigger decisions in the college baseball world gets put to a vote this week with the powers that be in the sport voting on whether or not to add a paid third assistant to a team’s coaching staff.

It’s something that’s been building steam over the last few years in the sport with more programs wanting to make the team’s volunteer assistant a paid full-time employee but some people and some conferences have objections to it.

One of those persons is not Mark Kingston, who went to bat for it Wednesday and defended his stance on why he thinks it should be added to college baseball.

“It’s an absolute no-brainer. There’s no good excuse to not go for it. That’s my personal opinion,” he said. “Leagues and people not voting for it I think need to look in the mirror and ask themselves if they’d like to be working their current job at their university and not be paid and be called a volunteer.”

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Right now every team in the SEC, including South Carolina, has voted in favor of adding a third paid assistant but other Power Five conferences like the Big 12 are planning on voting against it.

As of Wednesday afternoon, the ACC is planning on voting yes according to D1Baseball’s Kendall Rogers, which would be a big boost to the proposal passing.

Under the proposal, teams would have the ability to add a third paid assistant to their staff, effectively removing the volunteer tag from the coaches each program has across the country.

If passed, it would not mandate the schools have a paid third assistant; it would only give programs the option to do so if they wanted to.

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South Carolina currently has two full-time assistants in recruiting coordinator/assistant coach Mike Current and pitching coach Skylar Meade. Stuart Lake is currently the team’s volunteer assistant, who works with the hitters and runs the Gamecocks’ prospect camps.

Only Kingston, Current and Meade are allowed to do any off-campus recruiting while Lake and director of baseball player development Trip Couch can help out when a prospect is on campus.

This issue is especially close to Kingston, who was a volunteer assistant at Miami under legendary head coach Jim Morris before becoming recruiting coordinator at Tulane in 2002.

That’s why he would like to see this kind of plan pass and see hopefully some of those volunteer monikers removed.

“To me, it’s a total disservice to those people in those jobs. I’ve been in that position,” he said. “I was a volunteer at one point. To call these employees of college baseball volunteers and not give them benefits and not provide something to help their families is—a disgrace is probably too strong a word—but to me I don’t understand how you can rationalize that. We have people that put in that many hours that have that big an impact on college student athletes and say, ‘We’re not going to provide the assistance everybody else on campus gets.”’

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College baseball has the worst coach-to-player ratio among Division 1 athletics, which is why there is a strong push to get this measure passed.

The American Baseball Coaches Association backed the proposal in October with a lot of other prominent coaches wanting it passed as well. The vote will be final by Friday and, if passed, will take affect August 1.

“To me I don’t understand it. I don’t think there’s any excuse,” Kingston said of the proposal’s dissenters. “My opinion is it should pass and if it doesn’t it’s a shame.”