Landon Powell: 5 things to know about potential South Carolina baseball coach

South Carolina is in search of a new baseball coach after the Gamecocks fired Mark Kingston on Monday.

There are several names being floated as Kingston’s possible replacement. One of them is North Greenville University coach Landon Powell. Here are five tidbits about the NGU coach:

Gamecock legend

If Powell were to be the next Gamecocks coach, it would be a popular choice given his history with the program. The 42-year-old was inducted into USC’s Hall of Fame back in 2014 and was part of three straight College World Series appearances from 2002-04. Powell was named to the CWS Legends team and finished his career as arguably the greatest catcher in school history.

Powell played in 251 college games and had 265 hits, 44 home runs, 61 doubles, and 193 RBIs, which placed him in the school’s top five on those all-time lists when he graduated.

Ties with Ray Tanner

Powell played at USC for Ray Tanner, former Gamecocks baseball coach who’s now making the decisions for the school’s athletic program.

Powell’s relationship with Tanner goes back to when he was a kid and served a bat boy for Tanner’s teams at N.C. State. When Tanner eventually landed at USC, Powell knew that’s where he wanted to play college baseball.

Tanner was a big reason Powell decided to get into coaching when his playing days were over.

“I just want to follow in Coach (Ray) Tanner’s footsteps and do the kids a great service like he did for me,” Powell told GamecocksOnline in 2014. “I’m excited to do all the things you have to do as a coach, whether it’s field work, working with the admissions office, study halls and order equipment. It’s fun.”

Division II success

Powell has built North Greenville into one of the top programs in Division II since taking over there in the summer of 2014.

NGU was coming off an 8-35 season before he arrived. Since then, North Greenville has won five regular-season Conference Carolinas championships, including this year, and five conference tournament championships.

Powell’s North Greenville teams have made it to the Division II tournament seven times, winning the program’s first national championship in 2022. The program has had several players selected in the Major League Baseball Draft since his arrival.

While Powell has enjoyed success at the Division II level, the biggest knock is that he hasn’t been a Division I head coach, much less one in the Southeastern Conference.

Caught a perfect game

After USC, Powell was a first-round pick (24th overall) in the 2004 MLB Draft and made his big league debut in 2009. His biggest moment came a year later when he was the catcher of Dallas Braden’s perfect game in 2010.

“It’s pretty cool, that magical day in 2010. The 19th perfect game in history is not something I would have dreamed of happening,” Powell told WCIV in 2020 on the 10-year anniversary of the game. “Dallas and I were two of the least likely people to be part of a perfect game. Kind of magical that we were in it.”

Powell also played in the Houston Astros and New York Mets organizations before retiring from baseball in 2013.

Featured in E60 Documentary

Powell and his family were featured in ESPN’s E60 feature called “The Backup Catcher.”

The documentary chronicled Powell and his family after the loss of their daughter Izzy, who died in 2013 from a rare autoimmune disease. Powell started a charity event called Donors on the Diamond in honor of their late daughter that raises awareness for organ and tissue donations.

Powell himself has battled through liver disease but has it under control.

“It’s all about faith. This is the journey God put me on,” Powell told The State in 2014. “You have highs and you have lows. With Izzy, it was a very, very low point in life. There’s not much else to say about it, but we just kept our faith in God and kept moving forward.”