Former Southern University head baseball coach and current University of Missouri head coach Kerrick Jackson brings his Tigers baseball program to the Andre Dawson Classic scheduled for February 21-23, 2025, in Vero Beach, Florida.
The Andre Dawson Classic is an annual, round-robin collegiate baseball tournament designed by Major League Baseball to highlight Historically Black Colleges and Universities and their baseball programs.
Major League Baseball continues its goal of highlighting Historically Black College and University baseball with the tournament initially known as the Urban Invitational which will be hosted at the Jackie Robinson Training Complex in Vero Beach.
The 2025 tournament will feature seven HBCUs – Alabama State University, Alabama A&M University, Florida A&M University, Grambling State University, Jackson State University, Prairie View A&M University, and Southern University. They will be joined by Coach Jackson’s baseball program from the University of Missouri.
The Andre Dawson Classic continues to include non-HBCU baseball programs to participate in the event each year. This will the University of Missouri’s first appearance. Since its inception, the tournament has invited such schools as Louisiana State University, University of New Orleans, University of California Irvine, Cal State Northridge, UCLA, University of Southern California and University of Illinois Chicago.
Jackson served as the head coach at Southern University from 2018-20, where he took a nine-win team in 2018 to 32 wins, a conference championship, and the NCAA Tournament the following season, earning Black College Nines’ “large school”, SWAC and Louisiana Sports Writers Association Coach of the Year accolades. His 2018 Jaguar team boasted the athletic department’s highest men’s team GPA and received national recognition for its community service efforts.
Before coaching at Southern, Jackson served as an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator at Missouri from 2011-15. Before heading to Missouri, Jackson served as the Midwest Area Scouting Supervisor for the Washington Nationals from 2008-10, overseeing Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska, and the Dakotas.
After coaching at Southern, Jackson served as chairman of the American Baseball Coaches Association’s Diversity in Baseball Committee since its creation in 2018. The committee works to improve diversity in the coaching ranks through a professional development program and an increased focus on youth baseball.
After leaving the diversity committee, Jackson became the University of Memphis head baseball coach. Prior to his season at Memphis, Jackson was the president of the MLB Draft League from 2020-22, a six-team summer baseball league sponsored by Major League Baseball and featuring a split-season amateur-professional format.
Jackson was tabbed as Missouri’s 15th head coach in June 2023.
Kerrick Jackson has ties to HBCU baseball. In addition to coaching at Southern University, he played at Bethune-Cookman University in 1996, leading the squad to its first-ever conference championship and regional appearance.