In 1978, four words secured the next 42 years of Jim Ellis’ career: “Ron says you’ll do.”
Ron Polk had been Mississippi State University’s baseball coach for three years by then and approved Ellis’ hiring as the radio announcer, a role Polk made sure Ellis stayed humble about, Ellis told the Starkville Rotary Club at its Monday meeting.
He remembered Polk correcting his postgame analysis after a doubleheader at the University of Tennessee in the 1990s.
“‘He said, ‘Jim, there was no play at the plate. Remember, I’m the baseball coach, you’re just the radio announcer,'” Ellis said.
But in his time as “just the radio announcer,” Ellis has seen four-plus decades of growth and change not just in MSU baseball, but in MSU and Southeastern Conference athletics as a whole, as well as the sports broadcasting industry.
The MSU baseball team has made it to the NCAA tournament 35 times in 42 years and reached the College World Series 10 times. The team has had two separate back-to-back CWS appearances, which Ellis noted was unique for having four different coaches, one for each year.
In the mid-1980s, MSU’s entire athletic budget was just $5.7 million, while last year it was $105.6 million. MSU brought in $112.2 million in athletic revenue last year and was one of few schools that turned a profit despite the COVID-19 pandemic, Ellis said.
“In 1986, the entire baseball budget was $176,000,” he said. “We’ve got assistant coaches making more than that now. It’s really amazing what has happened with investment in sports, particularly in the Southeastern Conference.”
Ellis has announced both men’s and women’s basketball at MSU in addition to baseball, and he remembers when the women’s team joined the SEC in 1982 and did not win a single game in its first four seasons. The team had just 16 SEC wins in 13 years until Sharon Fanning led the women to multiple winning seasons and NCAA tournament appearances, setting the stage for Vic Schaefer to take the team “to a whole ‘nother level,” Ellis said. Schaefer left for the University of Texas earlier this year, having reached the national championship game twice in his tenure with the Bulldogs.
Ellis had anecdotes and praise for a variety of MSU coaches and athletic directors, including former AD Larry Templeton, who he described as “really loyal to the people that worked for him.” Ellis’ wife was ill and in the hospital for nearly a month in 2001, and Templeton checked on him almost every day and gave him the time off he needed, Ellis said.
He described current AD John Cohen, a former MSU baseball player, as “innovative … very inquisitive, asks a lot of questions and thinks outside the box.”
Polk became a special assistant to Cohen earlier this year. During his 22 years as head baseball coach, he ran a tight ship, Ellis said, requiring players to be on the bus for away games at specific times and refusing to wait for anyone who wasn’t there on time.
“He was always extremely positive,” Ellis said. “I always appreciated that about him, and it rubbed off on his team.”
Prompted by a question from the audience, Ellis said sports radio has changed a great deal throughout his career, especially since television and social media are now the primary sources of sports news.
“If you look at ESPN, everything is hyped,” Ellis said. “What goes on around the game is almost more important than what goes on in the game, and that’s sort of what happens with a lot of radio broadcasts. I love the announcers who actually describe the game, stay with the game and don’t do a lot of coaching and speculating.”
He grew up listening to legendary MSU basketball and football announcer Jack Cristil and remembers the first time he heard him broadcast: MSU’s football team had a comeback win against Kentucky with an 80-yard touchdown pass in 1956.
Cristil was later Ellis’ roommate for more than a decade, until Ellis’ doctor told him Cristil’s smoking was harming his lungs, Ellis said.
“He was a true professional (and) a great storyteller,” Ellis said. “He could be a character sometimes, but he loved Mississippi State.”
Tess Vrbin was previously a reporter for The Dispatch.
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