Longtime Gulfport baseball coach retires, Admirals bring current state champion home
The Gulfport High School baseball program is heading in a new direction.
Longtime head coach Jamie McMahon has retired, according to the school’s announcement Monday on social media. Gulfport Athletics followed quickly with the announcement of Vancleave coach and reigning 5A state champion Justin Edwards as McMahon’s successor.
Edwards is a member of the McMahon coaching tree, serving as an assistant at GHS from 2012 to 2018 before leading the Bulldogs over the last six seasons.
“Just the way (Edwards) was able to get (Vancleave) to perform at the highest level this year and winning the state championship, it just became a no-brainer in bringing him back home,” GHS athletic director Matt Walters told the Sun Herald.
This isn’t the first time Walters has hired Edwards. Before Walters took over the Admirals athletic department, he held the same position at VHS and needed a new baseball coach after the school took home its first state title in 2018.
Walters poached Edwards from GHS and he would go on to win 121 games and the 2024 5A state championship.
“I got a chance to work with him every day for four years,” Walters said. “I think one of the hallmarks of being a great coach is, you know, they say ‘Hey, go make a kid run through a wall for you.’ But he’s also going to run through a that same wall for those kids.”
Edwards is stepping in for McMahon following a 13-season tenure. McMahon won 241 games and led the Admirals to South State titles in 2017 and 2023.
“Coach (McMahon) is one of those all-time great people that I’ve been able to encounter in my 24 years of high school sports,” Walters said. “I was a career baseball coach before I became an athletic director, so I’m kind of critical of baseball coaches by nature. Coach Mac was one of those guys where, there wasn’t things you could be critical of because he went about his business the right way.”
Gulfport is coming off a 19-12 season and a trip to the second round of the 7A playoffs.
