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Mark Kingston talks Team USA experience

On the Fourth of July, people have a lot of different activities they like to partake in from grilling to days on the lake and culminating in fireworks to celebrate America’s independence.

Gamecock baseball coach Mark Kingston will be celebrating his country today, just in a more unique way.

Kingston will spend it representing his country and coaching baseball as he continues his summer as an assistant with Team USA’s Collegiate National Team.

Mark Kingston || Photo by Katie Dugan
Mark Kingston || Photo by Katie Dugan

"It's been great. Obviously I think it's great to represent South Carolina in the USA program and it's great to represent our country with our national pastime,” Kingston said. “It’s been a ball and I’m enjoying getting to meet all these great players from across the country and working with a great coaching staff. You’re always going to learn. You try to be a lifelong learner and always try to pick up something, and I’ll pick up a lot during this summer tour that will help our program a lot at South Carolina."

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Kingston’s working under Louisville’s Dan McDonnell, a coach who got his start in South Carolina—he played and coached at The Citadel before heading to Ole Miss and taking the Louisville job.

McDonnell’s had amazing success in his 13-year stint with the Cardinals, making the postseason in 12 of those 13 years with five conference titles, eight trips to a Super Regional and five College World Series appearances with the most recent coming this year.

Kingston, who’s working with the hitters and as a first base coach during games, said it’s been incredibly beneficial to be able to learn under a guy like McDonnell who’s been one of the better coaches in baseball for over a decade.

The biggest thing has been learning McDonnell’s motivational tactics and seeing how he goes about his daily business running a program.

"I've been very fortunate; I’ve had so many great mentors through my career and now this is another guy you get to put the uniform on with and share ideas,” Kingston said. “You share ideas about recruiting, about practice schedules, about motivational techniques. Coach McDonnell's great with motivation so you see a lot of little tricks of the trade about how he gets his team ready. That part's been great."

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Kingston is just getting started during his month-long tenure with Team USA. So far he and the team is 3-0, which includes a 4-2 win over Team Cuba Wednesday night in Charlotte’s BB&T Ballpark.

They have three more games against Team Cuba before heading to Taiwan for five games against Chinese Taipei and finishing up in Japan with five more games against the Japan Collegiate All-Stars.

He’ll get back to Columbia at the end of July to fully resume his daily head coaching duties. While he’s on the road, though, he’s still able to do a little recruiting and it always helps when he’s able to mention coaching for Team USA.

"I think it adds to the overall prestige of the program. Coach (Ray) Tanner was with the USA team five times and I think that helps give more credibility to your program when Team USA wants people from your program involved,” Kingston said. “I think it can only help."

For the full Team USA Collegiate National Team schedule, click here.

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