Jake Mangum

Obviously, we fell short of that a little bit when I was there, but they ended up winning it the first year without me.

So I stayed at Mississippi State as long as I possibly could.

It was home for me, like I said.

And then I get drafted.

I get drafted and say yes to it at age 23, my senior year.

And COVID happens the first full year.

So I'm 25 years old, my first full season baseball game.

And then, you know, played well through the minors and ended up debuting at age 29.

So I just had a late start, man.

And, you know, I'm thankful for how it's been going.

I wouldn't call them potholes, though.

I think everything happens for a reason.

Yeah, so I was there for four years, and it was the last four years before NIO and the transfer portal.

So we shared 11.7 scholarships for 27 scholarship players.

We had eight walk-ons, 27 scholarship players.

And, you know, we just kind of wanted to make sure that we got the best players possible.

Senior year being a walk-on helped us get JT again to campus.

He turned down $1.8 million to come to college for

So he was able to, you know, get college paid for and not that he had to, but you know, when you turn down $1.8 million, you don't want to say no to that to go pay for college.

So he needed to be a full ride guy.