By Joe Joe Wright

joejoe.wright@cordeledispatch.com

Who is Ron Polk some of you maybe asking, well let me tell you. He is considered by many to be the finest college baseball coach of all time. With 1373 wins under his belt he is considered the “Father of Southeastern Conference Baseball.” Coach Polk has 1 losing season in 35 years as a head coach, it was his very last in 2008. He has 8 college World Series appearances and another 15 Regional appearances.

He is the author of two text books “The Baseball Playbook” and The Baseball-Softball Playbook,” both of which are the most widely used among all colleges and Universities Nationwide.

Coach Polk spent the first two years of his coaching career as a graduate assistant at Arizona and New Mexico. Then he took a job as an assistant coach at one of the premier junior college schools in the country, which was Miami Dade-South Community College in in 1968. While he was there he met a Cordele native Curtis Fisher.  When he was offered the Head Coaching job at Georgia Southern in Statesboro, he made an offer to the young Fisher to come play for him back in Georgia. Coach Polk would spend 4 years in Stateborough , Ga. before he was hired to take over at Mississippi State. Coach Polk guided Mississippi State for 22 years before going to Georgia for two years and back to Mississippi State for 7 more years. Today he is a volunteer Assistant  for the University of Alabama Birmingham and enjoys a speaking tour. He has been National Coach of the Year 2 times once in 1973 and in 1985, he was inducted into the College Baseball Hall of Fame in 2009.

Tickets to see Coach Polk on March 7^th at the Crisp County High Cafeteria  are  $25.00 each or a table of 10 for $200.00