Scott Berry’s place in Southern Miss baseball history was already secure. Now, the former Golden Eagles head coach is being recognized nationally.
Berry has been selected for induction into the American Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame as part of the Class of 2027. He will be honored with six other inductees during the ABCA Hall of Fame Banquet on Jan. 8, 2027, at the 83rd annual ABCA Convention in Chicago. The ABCA calls its Hall of Fame induction the highest honor it gives to a coach.
For Southern Miss fans, this honor feels like the natural ending to one of the most successful eras in school history. Berry spent 23 seasons with the Golden Eagle program, including 14 seasons as head coach, and retired in 2023 as the winningest baseball coach in Southern Miss history with a 528-276-1 record. Under Berry, the Golden Eagles reached nine NCAA Tournaments, advanced to two NCAA Super Regionals, won multiple conference titles and closed his tenure with seven straight 40-win seasons.
Berry did not just win at Southern Miss, he helped raise the standard of the entire program. His teams captured five conference regular-season championships, five conference tournament titles, and hosted postseason baseball in Hattiesburg multiple times. He earned Conference USA Coach of the Year honors four times and helped turn Pete Taylor Park into one of the toughest and most respected college baseball environments in the South.
Part of Berry’s legacy is player development. During his career, he mentored 17 All-Americans, 38 first-team all-conference selections, 38 MLB Draft picks, and four Ferriss Trophy winners, the award given annually to the top college baseball player in Mississippi. Southern Miss also notes that Berry coached a national Freshman of the Year and a national Pitcher of the Year.
Before becoming head coach, Berry spent nine seasons as an assistant and associate head coach under Corky Palmer. That stretch included Southern Miss’ historic 2009 College World Series run, the program’s first trip to Omaha. When Palmer retired, Berry inherited a strong program and made it even more consistent, building Southern Miss into a team that expected to play meaningful baseball every June.
His path to Hattiesburg also ran through Meridian. Before returning to Southern Miss in 2001, Berry was the head coach at Meridian Community College, where he went 185-58 in four seasons, led MCC to two NJCAA World Series appearances and coached future Cy Young Award winner Cliff Lee. Meridian later retired Berry’s No. 40 jersey, and he was inducted into the Mississippi Junior College Hall of Fame in 2014.
Berry’s coaching story began far from Hattiesburg. A native of Neosho, Missouri, he played catcher at Crowder College, where he was a two-time all-region selection, before a back injury ended his playing career early. He later earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Southwest Missouri State and began his coaching path as a student assistant.
The ABCA Hall of Fame honor places Berry among the most respected names in the sport. Since its first Hall of Fame class in 1966, the ABCA has honored more than 350 coaches. To be considered, a coach must have been a head coach, been an ABCA member for at least 15 years and made meaningful contributions to baseball through leadership, character and service.
For Southern Miss, this is more than a national award for a retired coach. It is recognition of an era. Berry helped build the modern identity of Golden Eagle baseball: tough, consistent, player-driven and built for June. From the 2009 Omaha run as an assistant to back-to-back Super Regional appearances in 2022 and 2023 as head coach, Scott Berry’s fingerprints are all over the greatest chapter in Southern Miss baseball history.
Now, that chapter has a Hall of Fame line attached to it.
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