Former MCC Eagle Lane Burroughs Joins Mississippi State Baseball Coaching Staff

STARKVILLE, Miss. - Mississippi State University head baseball coach John Cohen announced Tuesday the hiring of Lane Burroughs as assistant baseball coach. The staff addition is pending the approval of the Board of Trustees, Institutions of Higher Learning.

Burroughs, a native of Meridian, Miss., joins the MSU staff after serving as an assistant coach for the Kansas State Wildcats in 2008. He previously served a nine-year stint as an assistant coach at Southern Miss.

"Lane is a hard worker and a native Mississippian who has a deep appreciation for Mississippi State baseball," said Cohen. "He has a proven track record as an energetic recruiter and as one of college baseball’s top hitting coaches. Six of USM’s nine NCAA tournament appearances came while Lane was their recruiting coordinator. He has gravitated toward my style of offensive baseball during his career and made it work at Southern Miss. I’m excited about Lane joining the coaching team at Mississippi State."

At Mississippi State Burroughs will be serving on a John Cohen-led baseball staff for the second time in his 15-year coaching career. Prior to his nine-year term as an assistant coach on Corky Palmer’s USM staff (1999-2007), Burroughs served as an assistant coach under Cohen at Northwestern (La.) State for two seasons, helping the Demons capture the Southland Conference title in 1998.

Burroughs played high school baseball at West Lauderdale High School in Collinsville, Miss., where he was coached by Jerry Boatner, one of the all-time winningest coaches in Mississippi high school history, and was a teammate of Mississippi State All-American and Major League pitching standout Jay Powell. He continued his baseball career at Meridian Community College and later at Mississippi College, where he earned All-Gulf South Conference honors.

He launched his coaching career as a graduate assistant coach at his alma mater, Mississippi College, then served for one year as an assistant coach at East Mississippi Community College before joining Cohen’s staff at Northwestern State.

Burroughs and his wife, the former Susan Parker of Meridian, are the parents of two daughters, Parker Grace, 6, and Camryn Laine, 4, and a son, Thomas Jackson, born last September.