Mark Kingston: In His Own Words
“What fans need to know about me is that I have very few hobbies, if any. Faith, family, and baseball take up 99 percent of my time. Away from the field, I’m probably pretty boring. I don’t have time for many hobbies because I’d be selling any of those three areas short.
The key to any success I’ve had in the past is work ethic. You have to work harder and smarter than the next guy if you’re going to have success.
There are no shortcuts.
I knew I wanted this job once I had a chance to spend an extended amount of time with Ray Tanner. In our business, he’s known as one of the best that’s ever coached.
The opportunity to be here is one of the best in the country because of the fans, because of the academics, because of the tradition, and because of the future potential. This program has everything.
The fans are huge in the culture of a program.
Mark Kingston
There’s probably more pressure in being the head coach at South Carolina, but we’re not going to back away from that. Pressure comes when you listen too much to anything that’s not on point to what gets your team better. I believe that wins are a byproduct of doing everything well every single day.
The biggest lessons I’ve learned about being a head coach is that it’s a lifestyle. You better have the support of your family. You better have a great wife that’s willing to be on this journey with you because it’s 24/7. You’re always on-call. You just have to accept that and embrace it.
On game day, I want our fans to be loud and support the Gamecocks.
The fans are huge in the culture of a program. They’re huge in the recruiting process because kids want their efforts to be appreciated and noticed by huge crowds, which they can get here. It also gives you a home field advantage when you’re playing a big SEC rival, or you’re playing Clemson and you have 11,000-plus great Gamecock fans here. That gives you an edge.
We want to host regionals and super regionals. We know it will be a packed house.
My expectation for year one is to be the best we can be, whatever that is. I’m not going to make any guarantees on how many games we’re going to win, but we’re going max out what this team is capable of.
I’m looking forward to this environment. I think the environment here is very special. I look forward to coaching some of the best players in the country. I look forward to building them into a team that can compete at the highest level. I look forward to playing in front of the greatest crowd in America.
My vision for opening day is to make sure we’re prepared. You can’t go to Omaha on day one, but we can use the next nine months to make sure we are prepared to win that game.”
