STARKVILLE — Nick Mingione will never forget what John Cohen did after winning the Southeastern Conference Coach of the Year in 2006.
Leading the Kentucky baseball team to a co-SEC regular season championship, Cohen took home the most prestigious honor for an SEC coach. It was well deserved as Cohen took the Wildcats from last in the previous season to first.
It was an incredible turnaround, but what Cohen did afterward still gives Mingione goose bumps. He got his three assistants (Mingione, Gary Henderson and Brad Bohannan) SEC Coach of the Year awards with their names on it. Mingione recalls Cohen telling him, “I couldn’t have done it without y’all.” It showed Mingione just who he was working for.
“He’s an unbelievable human being,” Mingione said. “If you only saw him on the field, you would have one impression. But being with him for 10 years, I see the son he is toward his mom Doris, to the son he was to Harry when he was alive. I’ve seen the dad he’s been to his girls Jordan and Avery and ultimately the husband he’s been to Nelle.”
Cohen took home the award again Monday, this time after leading his alma mater Mississippi State from last place in 2015 to outright SEC regular season champions with a 21-9 record. Cohen and No. 2 MSU (40-14-1), who is the top seed in the SEC tournament, play the winner of eighth-seeded Kentucky (32-24) and ninth-seeded Alabama (31-24) 4:30 p.m. Wednesday (SEC Network) in Hoover, Alabama.
Serving as the third base coach, Mingione has watched as Cohen has made the drastic turnaround for the second time in his career. Giving much of the credit to the players, Mingione knows how vital of a role Cohen plays in the success.
“He does so many things for our guys, that they don’t even notice at times,” Mingione said. “He’s a man that cares not only about them as a player, but off the field. He holds them accountable academically and off the field. He truly cares about them as people.”
Cohen becomes the second coach to win the award at multiple schools. Ron Polk, who Cohen played from 1987-90, won the award three times with MSU (1979, 1985 and 1989) and took the award home in 2001, leading Georgia to the regular season outright championship. Cohen won the Southland Conference Coach of the Year twice (1998 and 2001) while at Northwestern State.
Former Bulldog Jarrod Parks is not surprised that Cohen has taken the program from the bottom to the top. Although he knows how remarkable it is what transpired within the program, he knew Cohen was going to be hungry after last season.
Serving as the Starkville Academy coach, Parks feels like it’s Cohen’s approach toward coaching that has made him so successful.
“The best way I would describe him as a coach, he’s an innovator,” Parks said. “He has his own vision and he sticks to it. He doesn’t let anybody take him out of his own way to get to where he wants to be. If you’re not on board with what he’s trying to teach, then he’s going to find somebody that will buy in and take them where they need to be.”
Transferring from Meridian Community College, Parks played in 2009 in Cohen’s first year, before sitting out 2010 after back surgery. He helped lead MSU to a super regional in 2011.
Parks describes Cohen as “intimidating, hardcore, energetic and funny.” Current players have seen all of those adjectives, especially junior right-handed pitcher Dakota Hudson.
“He’s a fierce competitor,” Hudson said. “We feed off him a little bit. He wants things the right way and I feel like him being that demanding of us makes us push for perfection.”
Cohen picked up his 601st victory with a 9-4 victory Saturday against Arkansas to win the league title.
Freshman outfielder Jake Mangum, who picked up several honors himself, didn’t see the award faze Cohen. Mangum has thrived in Cohen’s system in year one.
“Coach does an amazing job of pushing you to play at your best,” Mangum said. “It works out perfect for most of us because he has a philosophy that he sticks with and he’s never going to change that. He’s done an amazing job with us.”
Although Cohen can get vocal with some umpires time to time like many coaches do, his softer side is what Mingione focuses on.
“I don’t know if I’ve been around a better leader of people than him,” Mingione said.
Follow Dispatch sports writer Ben Wait on Twitter @bcwait
Ben Wait reports on Mississippi State University sports for The Dispatch.
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