A Super Talk, Mississippi Media Production.

We are back here on Thunder and Lightning.

We're brought to you by our friends at the Vicksburg Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Visit Vicksburg, my hometown.

Man, I'm so excited about that sponsorship.

I'm also excited to have Coach Justin Parker on with us for the first time here on Thunder and Lightning.

And coach, I asked this question of Coach Lomonas a couple months ago when I had him on my podcast, but I'm going to ask it of you now.

You had a good job at South Carolina. That's a good program. They went a lot of baseball games there.

They had a lot of success. Why come to Mississippi State?

Yeah, I mean, that's a great question. I've got that a lot. You know, it just was something

that as I went through this process, you know, and my family was heavily involved as well,

obviously. You know, this was just a place that, you know, I was very impressed with last spring when we played here. You know, I've known a lot of the other coaches and the people involved for a while. And, you know, it was a pitching staff that I kind of looked at from the other dugout and competing against and saw a lot of talent, a lot of potential, maybe some of it untapped. and, you know, just as a competitor, I think this summer it was something that I thought, you know, just, I were looking forward to taking on a challenge like that. You know, I don't know if that, that, you know, I think you have to be a little bit crazy to coach in the SEC anyway, but this was a challenge that I was excited

about us.

I started to learn more about it.

So, yeah, I'm excited to be here.

There's no getting around the fact that Mississippi State struggled as a pitching staff

last year.

The term I've used a lot is systemic, that it wasn't just one guy struggling or a couple

of games. It was all year

long, and there were huge problems with everybody on the staff. Do you, have you had enough time,

you feel? I mean, it's been nine months since the end of the season going into opening day.

Is that enough time to correct the issues to a point where you feel confident in your guys

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