Tim Parenton enters his seventh season as the head coach of the Samford baseball team looking to lead the team in its first season as a member of the Ohio Valley Conference.

In Parenton's six seasons at Samford, the Bulldogs have compiled a 117-209 overall record. Parenton learned to build a successful program from one of the best coaches in the country, Ron Polk, who started Mississippi State University on its winning ways. Parenton worked with the 1997 MSU team that finished 47-21, won the NCAA Mideast Regional and earned a spot in the College World Series. The team tied for fifth place in the country.

Parenton served under Polk at MSU after a stint at Old Dominion, where he helped guide a team that produced a 198-87 record during his five-year tenure. Old Dominion won Colonial Athletic Conference titles in 1994 and 1995, and the 1995 team posted a 39-20 mark under then-coach Pat McMahon, who also coached at Mississippi State.

As a student-athlete at MSU, Parenton earned three letters as a third baseman and shortstop, and four letters as a quarterback on the Bulldog football teams that participated in the 1980 Sun Bowl and won the 1981 Hall of Fame Bowl in Birmingham. The 1989 graduate spent three years as a graduate assistant football coach and two years as assistant director for athletics facilities and game management in Starkville, Miss.

A native of New Orleans and a graduate of Jesuit High School, Parenton played basketball for Birmingham-Southern Head Coach Duane Reboul while at Jesuit, assisted by current Samford Head Basketball Coach Jimmy Tillette. Parenton was Jesuit High's Athlete of the Decade for the 1970s. He was also a teammate of former San Francisco Giant and Texas Ranger Will Clark and Texas Ranger Rafael Palmeiro.

A two-sport athlete at MSU, Parenton has been grooming the Samford Bulldogs to compete in the Ohio Valley Conference, which is one of the oldest conferences in the country. He enjoyed a win over his alma mater in 2002 and another win over an SEC team last season, as Samford defeated Alabama.

He is married to the former Shelia Cummins of Kosciusko, Miss.