By CURTIS ROCKWELL/Sports Director

FLOWOOD — Former Picayune High baseball standout and current Memphis head coach Matt Riser will be one of the featured speakers at the annual Mississippi Association of Coaches Multi-Sports Clinic this week.

The annual affair gets underway with a golf outing Monday before things really get rolling on Tuesday as hundreds of high school coaches from all across the state will descend on the Sheraton Hotel here just outside of Jackson. The Clinic wraps up on Friday.

Sessions will be conducted for participants in as many as a dozen different sports and activities throughout the week. Along with Riser on the baseball side, Louisiana-Monroe head coach Michael Frederico will speak as well.

The biggest name on the docket, though, is new Mississippi State head football coach Jeff Lebby, who will speak Wednesday morning.

Picayune head football coach Cody Stogner and his staff will be attending the clinic. For Stogner, it’s become an annual tradition as not only did he just finish his fourth season at the helm of the Maroon Tide but as a longtime assistant under Dodd Lee the trip to the clinic was a rite of passage during the dog days of Summer also.

“It’s a good time to get together and bounce ideas around with coaches from other successful programs,” Stogner, who was a high school teammate with Riser, said.

Riser just finished his first season in Memphis and he came to the Tigers after 10 seasons as head coach at Southeastern Louisiana, where he helped guide the Lions to four NCAA Tournament berths and three Southland Conference titles. He was recently recognized by Baseball America as one of the nation’s top coaches under the age of 40, 

After an All-State career at Picayune in which he and Stogner led the Maroon Tide to the 2002 state championship, Riser went on to play at Tulane where he helped guide the Green Wave to a berth in the College World Series as well.

With the Green Wave, Riser played in 108 games in the 2005-2006 seasons. As a senior, he played in all 64 games and made 57 starts, finishing the season with three home runs, 37 RBI and 16 doubles, helping Tulane to a NCAA Regional Final Appearance. In 2005, Riser played a vital role in helping Tulane to the 2005 College World Series, playing in 44 games as a junior.

Other coaches with ties to the “Southern Six” that will be featured speakers at the clinic this week are George County head football coach James Ray, Meridian head boys basketball coach Ron Normand and Mississippi Gulf Coast head football coach Jack Wright as well Bulldog mens head basketball coach Owen Miller and Lady Bulldogs head coach Hope Adams.