As I showed earlier, we are the 7th best program nationally over the last decade and were #2 nationally over 2013 through 2021.Originally Posted by Coach34
I'd rather keep the time frame short for that reason, but if you're going back 34 years, you might as well go back 40 years.
Yeah we used to have players stick at least til their junior year and most even played out their senior years. You could develop and keep talent. Not that way anymore. There is pretty much a rebuild every year now. Portal and nil are huge now. If you miss on a couple of players, it can make huge difference. That's why now you pretty much have to base it on a year to year basis and evaluation.
Odd you had two extremely successful coaches in Polk and Mike Martin and neither one could every get that natty. They're considered 2 of the best of all time and couldn't get it done. Shows just how hard it is in baseball.
Just to re-enforce your point -
We have 4 players on the roster who contributed in '22 - Hines, Auger, Kohn, & Downs.
to me...miss state baseball is about listening to the games on the radio while washing the car or firing up the grill for the past 30+ years. remembering my dad taking me to watch us play Mississippi College in clinton on a frigid night in the early early 90s. i was hooked. Having a high school doubleheader on a saturday and listening to Jim on the way home and getting a kick out of how he put the emphasis on travis CHAPman, or maniSCALco, or the BOTtom of the 9th inning. staying up late to watch the SEC tournament cuz it was the first week we got out of school so bed time didn't matter, and the games weren't on tv like they are today but the tournament was!! Living and dying with the 97 and 98 runs. still holding a grudge against that tool otoole even though a couple of the most dramatic homers in program history were played out in that game in the most miss state fashion ever. Going to every home game while in college and gaining weight every spring cuz if you couldn't drink a beer an inning you were a wuss. Hanging on the fence about to die of dehydration when we somehow shocked clemson in 07. the sense of disbelief and relief when we finally sealed the deal at vandy in 18. Leaving my seat to go to the restroom every time we were on defense late in the game against notre dame in 21 cuz my blood pressure couldn't stand for me to watch. and i could go on and on and on...
the point is that there are no Kentucky fans that have that. Not even any Umiss fans my age have that. LSU...yeah sure. But as an 80s kid that fell in love with baseball in general early on, miss state baseball is part of the fabric of why i still love everything about the sport and chose coaching as a profession.
the on field results say we are an upper tier program, a historic program as someone described earlier, but there are many many folks who have the same experiences and feelings as me and to us it is an elite program. and all that goes into how expectations are different. i hope like the dickens Lemonis closes out this season with a good run and builds upon it to keep us moving upward and onward and hopefully snag a natty or two more along the way. but if next year looks like the 2 before this one then he shouldn't get the chance. the "state standard" is built on post season advancement and success much more than anything else. heck the 18 team wasn't great but they made a dang good run. and if Lemonis can't get us into the postseason every year then he can't meet that standard. whatever you choose to say that equates to...
Wow, this is an excellent post and brings back great memories for me! I grew up the same way. Have some rep!
Clemson 07......our students in the outfield doing research on the RF, and showing a poster of him dressed as a woman. Then the photos of the celebration winning that series and someone riding on the field with a tall unicycle. We need to re-surface those photos today.
Dude put down the crack pipe, Polk is not one of the best of all time. When you can't win it all with the overwhelming talent and resources he had in an era when no one, other than us, cared about college baseball, you're not in the "best of all time" conversation. Now he may be one of the best "under achievers" of all time.
No matter what any State fan thinks, Ron Polk is considered one of the best college baseball coaches of all time. State folks are the only ones that even say that he's not, which i find odd. If for nothing else he is the father of SEC baseball. It seems to me I'm not the one with the crack pipe.
Polk took 3 different schools to Omaha. He himself has made the CWS more times than all but 19 programs. Yes you can say he underachieved by never winning one, but you could say the same thing about Mike Martin, who went 17 times, or DVH who has taken 2 schools and went 9 times. Polk is one of the best coaches in college baseball history. He's not on Skip Bertman's level, because no one is, but to say Polk is not one of the best all time is just a bad take.
Great coach and program builder. 100%. Yes also to Father of SEC baseball
But you do have to acknowledge that without a title he and Martin cant be viewed as "one of the best". The best win hardware
Walk like the King or walk like you don't care who the King is
See it's tricky. Just from a football lense, I consider Dan Marino to be one of the best QBs of all time. Yet, he didn't win a Super Bowl. Now does that mean I have to consider someone like Trent Dilfer or Mark Rypien to be better than Dan Marino just because they won a SB? Rypien may have been a bad example because he actually had a decent 3-4 year run. But you could throw Nick Foles in there.
Last edited by StarkVegasSteve; 05-10-2024 at 01:28 PM.
"One of the best" can be subjective. Polk is 9th all time in wins, took 3 teams to omaha(yes he never won), built our program, built baseball in the sec. He's considered "one of the best" by everyone involved in college baseball(who isn't a State fan). He would be that based on wins alone but when you add all the other things he's done for college baseball, yeah he's one of the best. Gene Chizik wouldn't be considered one of the best just because he won a title would he? It's super hard to win titles in baseball. I know a lot of fans have a bad taste in their mouth because of Polks issues with the university, but if you take off your State glasses there's no question he's a top 15-20 coach of all time. JMO, but it's based on what people involved in college baseball, scouts, mlb players and coaches think of Coach Polk
and that is a very valid argument
Walk like the King or walk like you don't care who the King is
I think it's like you said. His legacy definitely takes a hit due to no titles. He's safely in the second tier with guys like DVH, Bianco, Mike Martin, Wayne Graham, etc. I think you have the 1A tier with Dedeaux, Bertman, and Garrido. Then you have the 1B tier with Ron Fraser, Pat Casey, Tim Corbin, Cliff Gustafson, Mark Marquess, Jim Brock, etc.
I agree, he's definitely in the top 15-20 of all time. Might add Bobby Winkles to your list he won 3 titles at ASU before Jim Brock. Very good list though!
It just sucks for Polk because he very easily could be in that 1B tier and knocking on the 1A door. We were the best team in the country in 85 and 89 and you could make an argument we were as good in 84 as we were in 85. That would've been 3 in 6 year stretch. That would've cemented him because he could've had 3 before Bertman had 1
Huge difference between Polk and Marino. Marino played in an ultra competitive league where the most teams were essentially equal and careers are short. Polk coached in an era when he had overwhelming advantages and few other programs in the country cared about college baseball, and none cared near as much as we did. Had Polk coached Vermont for 30 years and never won a title, that would be understandable, but not winning one with the advantages he had is inexcusable. Look at mediocre coaches who have won titles just based on talent, Coker, Special Ed, Chizik, etc. Many of you would add Lemonis to that list. Just think of how easy it was to get to the CWS in Polk's day, we should have lived there.
What advantages did he really have? Fans that cared and a nice stadium? I mean if fans and stadiums factored in we'd have 15 national championships. The games were still played between talented players. I mean it wasn't just us. When Polk finally got us going, Miami was rolling, USC and Arizona St were still very good, Garrido had Cal State Fullerton loaded every year, Gustafson had Texas rolling, Gene Stephenson had a monster at Wichita St, hell Maine was rolling, and the list can go on. Again, college baseball is not college football. There's never been more than 10-12 programs that can realistically win a national championship on a year to year basis. College baseball has always been a sport where there's 35-40 teams that can realistically win a national championship in a given year.
Should Polk have won a national championship? Absolutely, he should've won two. Did he get terrible luck in 85 that cost him a CWS? Absolutely. You can say he came up short, but to say he was overrated is going way overboard.
Ha, ha, nice job. Dang 34 interesting stat but don't bring that crap in here.
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