Before the end of his freshman year at Starkville High School, Ethan Pulliam was merely a two-sport standout for the Yellow Jackets, starring in baseball and soccer.
But at a field day event where the four class years competed against one another in various athletic endeavors, Pulliam punted a football for the first time — and discovered a talent he never knew he had.
“Ethan, who had never really kicked a football before in his life, he punts,” said Luke Adkins, Starkville’s baseball coach at the time. “He’s a left-footed kicker even though he’s right-handed in everything else. He punts the football, and it’s like a 60-yard punt that turns over halfway as it goes in the air.”
Adkins immediately reached out to Yellow Jackets football coach Chris Jones, and just like that, Starkville had its new starting punter.
By his senior year, Pulliam was a top-10 ranked punter in the country and helped the Yellow Jackets win the 2022 MHSAA Class 6A state championship. But he never gave up on baseball either, batting .466 as a senior. His hometown Southeastern Conference school gave him the opportunity to continue playing both sports, and so Pulliam spent much of the spring balancing football practice at Mississippi State with a busy baseball season.
“It was supportive throughout his recruiting process,” said Chris Pulliam, Ethan’s father and MSU’s associate director of construction administration. “No one ever had any concerns (that) he can’t do it or any other concerns as far as time management and all that.”
Once his punting talent was unearthed, Pulliam was traveling regularly to punting and kicking camps while still balancing baseball, soccer and his academics. He played varsity baseball starting in eighth grade and saw time at nearly every position. An outfielder as an eighth grader, Pulliam later became the Yellow Jackets’ ace pitcher and an infielder when he wasn’t on the mound.
His highlights included a stellar pitching performance as a sophomore in a playoff upset win over powerhouse Madison Central and a multi-home run game as a senior in the district opener against Tupelo, with the second blast being his first walk-off shot in a Starkville uniform.
“You could tell, as far as talent level, he was just different than most other kids,” Adkins said. “He threw a lot harder than most of the kids his age. If you’re a ninth grader and you even get an opportunity to fill in defensively every now and then, sniff the field, it’s unusual at that level. For him to insert himself in the mix at that age, I’ve never personally had a kid that could do that, especially at the highest level of competition in the public schools.”
‘Don’t get ready. Be ready’
Pulliam had committed to MSU for baseball in March 2020, nearly three full years before he officially signed his letter of intent to play both sports for the Bulldogs. Two of his cousins, CoEric Riley and Mark McLaurin, had also played football at MSU, and Pulliam is also cousins with Starkville native and Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver A.J. Brown and former NFL defensive tackle Tom Johnson III.
“He doesn’t shy away from work,” Jones said. “He understands what it takes to get better. When the season first started, he wasn’t getting a whole lot of (playing time) as far as baseball. I told him, ‘When you get the chance, don’t get ready. Be ready.’ Every day, prepare like you’re the starter. Prepare mentally like you’re the starter, practice like it, and when you get your chance, don’t look back.”
Through the first two months of his freshman baseball season with the Bulldogs, Pulliam had appeared in just five games with two at-bats, although he did drive in a run with a groundout on Mar. 10 against Evansville. But after MSU lost two out of three to rival Ole Miss in mid-April and dipped below .500 in SEC play, head coach Chris Lemonis shook things up, inserting Pulliam into the starting lineup at second base for a midweek game against Alcorn State.
Just as Jones had advised him, Pulliam took the starting role and never looked back, having started each of the last 19 regular-season games. He recorded his first two collegiate hits in that first start against the Braves, then had another multi-hit game three nights later in his first-ever SEC game against Auburn. After five straight hitless games, Pulliam went 3-for-4 with his first college home run in the series finale at Arkansas on May 12.
Pulliam had played all over the diamond in high school, so Lemonis was comfortable moving him from second base to right field for the last three games against Missouri with starting outfielder Connor Hujsak still on the mend from a back injury.
“I hadn’t had a chance to play my freshmen much, and so we hadn’t had a chance to see him,” Lemonis said. “But in the fall, in spring training, he was always putting together good at-bats. He needed an opportunity. I’ve had a freshman per week, almost, getting those at-bats in SEC play, and I just felt like he deserved that opportunity. And he took it and ran with it.”
Pulliam’s present focus is on baseball as MSU plays in the postseason for the first time since winning the 2021 national championship, but the path to playing time on the gridiron this fall looks open as well. Keelan Crimmins, the Bulldogs’ starting punter in 2023, transferred to Purdue this spring, leaving Pulliam and New Mexico State transfer Zachary Haynes as the only punters on the roster.
Despite all the time he devotes to athletics, Pulliam does not take his studies lightly either, earning a spot on the President’s List for the fall semester with a grade-point average of 3.8 or higher.
“We’re grateful for all his coaches throughout the years being supportive of him being a multi-sport athlete,” Chris Pulliam said. “It’s served him well, just to have that balance. It was almost a relief going from one sport to the next.”
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 28 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
