The University of Missouri and Head Baseball Coach Tim Jamieson have reached an agreement, as announced today by Director of Athletics Mack Rhoades. Jamieson’s base salary will remain the same, but the program will receive a budget increase to further aid the program’s growth.
“We are pleased Tim will continue to lead our program,” Rhoades said. “This year’s team made encouraging progress and we look forward to moving the program forward with the current roster of talented, young student-athletes in addition to the highly-regarded young men joining our program next year. We are committed to investing in our program and student-athletes in order to increase our competitiveness in the premier baseball conference in the country. Coach Jamieson led our program to high levels of success in the past and we anticipate the same in the future. Tim manages his program with great integrity and represents Mizzou in a first-class manner.”
“First, I want to express my gratitude to Mack and the rest of our administration for having confidence in my staff and I as we continue to improve our program alongside the best in the nation in the SEC,” Jamieson said. “We are coming off of a year that is more reflective of the success we saw throughout our tenure in the Big 12 and we will continue to get better as we take on the challenges of competing in the SEC. The commitment Mack and the administration have made to our program is reflected in the increase in our budget and I am beyond grateful to them for helping give us the resources we need to be even more successful in the SEC.”
Jamieson’s Tigers are coming off of a third-place finish in the SEC East Division after going 15-15 in SEC play with a starting lineup that featured as many as six underclassmen, including four true freshmen. Nearly half of the team’s offensive production came from underclassmen in 2015. Mizzou exceeded the expectations of nearly every national pundit in 2015, earning its most conference wins since 2009 while winning six of 10 SEC weekend series and ranking as high as No. 14 nationally. The Tigers also boasted five wins over top-10 teams while playing the nation’s fourth-most difficult schedule according to D1Baseball.com. Three players – junior Breckin Williams and freshmen Tanner Houck and Trey Harris – earned All-SEC honors in 2015 as well.
Jamieson, the 2007 Big 12 Coach of the Year, has helped take Mizzou baseball to new heights in his 21 seasons, winning 30 or more games in 15 of those seasons. He took Mizzou to nine NCAA Regionals, including seven consecutive seasons from 2003-09. He is the dean of Mizzou’s coaches, boasting the longest tenure of any of Mizzou’s varsity coaches and has won 672 games in his career at Mizzou (32 wins per season average).
Not only have Jamieson’s teams achieved tremendous success, but he has a knack for developing talent and recruiting top-notch athletes to Mizzou. Six former players under Jamieson made the 40-man, opening day rosters in Major League Baseball this season, including three who have been named All-Stars in their careers – Max Scherzer (Washington Nationals), Ian Kinsler (Detroit Tigers) and Aaron Crow (Miami Marlins). Scherzer, Crow and current Minnesota Twins starter Kyle Gibson have all been drafted in the first round of the MLB First Year Player Draft as well.
In 2014, Jamieson’s squad boasted a 981 academic progress rate (APR), the top APR in the SEC and followed that up by ranking fifth in the SEC in this year’s APR rankings. Since 2006, 100 percent of Mizzou baseball players who have exhausted their eligibly have graduated under Jamieson’s direction. In addition, drafted juniors such as current assistant Hunter Mense and current graduate assistant Trevor Coleman have come back to earn their degrees from Mizzou following their professional careers while working alongside Jamieson as coaches.
