Northeast Lauderdale welcomes Brock McKnight as new baseball coach
Jul. 19—When Brock McKnight heard about the open position as head baseball coach at Northeast Lauderdale, it was a no brainer for him to apply for the job.
"It's been a blessing for my family and me," McKnight said. "This place is a sleeping giant, and I believe that big things are gonna happen here in a matter of time, and I'm just excited for this next journey."
McKnight is a Mississippi State graduate from Kosciusko, and during his playing career, he played at Kosciusko High from 2009-2012 and East Mississippi Community College from 2012-2014. As a coach, he served as a graduate assistant at Mississippi Delta Community College from 2015-2017 and head coach at Lee Academy School in Clarksdale from 2017-2021.
He comes to Northeast from Southeast Lauderdale, where he was an assistant baseball coach last season.
"First and foremost, I can't thank (head coach) Shay Cooper enough," he said. "You're talking about a wonderful human being that took me under his wing and continued to teach, and I will forever love those people over there."
McKnight has gained a lot of knowledge from other coaches about the game, and one aspect he's looking to bring to Northeast is a sense of family.
"At the end of the day, I want these kids to know that every single day they're going to be loved," McKnight said. "It's going to take us all to win. It's going to take them trusting in our coaches and our coaches trusting them, and being a one unit process of coming in and competing every day."
"Our goal is to be better every single day than we were yesterday," he said. "There's gonna be some days where we might fail and might lose a day every now and then because we're all human and we're not perfect. "But at the end of the day, our goal as a team and organization is to go 1-0 every day," McKnight added.
"We are really excited about Coach McKnight coming in," said Athletic Director Lewis Lightsey. "He was highly recommended, and we felt like the timing couldn't have worked out better for us to hire him."
"I believe his ability to communicate will be great for us and the team. He's going to relate well to the kids, and they're going to like him," Lightsey added.
