re: Alabama baseball

I listened to Southern Miss coach recently and a local sports guy. The impact Ron Polk made on college baseball was bigger than I thought.

He traveled all over the state of Mississippi trying to get every program including Juco ball to love college baseball. The current coach of USM said it all started with him.

Then Polk made his case to the SEC the importance of college baseball back when it was not a big deal. He litterally manned a tractor on the field and (stadium) what it became before the left field lounge got big and fans packed the stadium.

There was no money back then for SEC baseball like it is today. So he did much on his own, incredible!

Later years the Ncaa decided to cut back on the amount of games played and Ron Polk fought them for years, eventually having friends like Skip Bertman join in to save the game. College baseball was not a money maker outside of a few programs and so the Ncaa did not care much about the sport.

I listened to a sports historian talk about this also and was blown away.
Eventually there were write-ups by people like Baseball America who mentioned Starkville was the greatest atmosphere for a college baseball game. Author John Grisham would write about it also.

But it was Ron Polk who led the charge in the early years and look what college baseball has become. Gotta give props to the man, he once said "I want every kid that loves the game to be able to play it on a high level." Something like that. Ok gotta run. Here's to college baseball and the SEC packed stadiums we all enjoy today. And the Sec tourney coming up soon! Later guys.