What, exactly, does the special assistant to the athletic director do at Mississippi State University?
Ron Polk pretty much does what he wants to do, and he does a lot of it.
“I do a lot of speaking at high schools and college banquets, clinics all over the country,” the iconic former baseball coach said Tuesday before speaking to the Rotary Club of Columbus at Lion Hills Center. “I walk around and go to all of the practices, meet the players and coaches. I do color commentary for baseball on the radio network, meet with donors.
“I’m not charging them anything to do this, so I can still coach in the summertime, which I do,” he added.
That’s what he was doing during this year’s College World Series. While the Bulldogs were in Omaha, Nebraska, Polk was in the dugout in Hyannis, Massachusetts, coaching in the Cape Cod League, the most prestigious summer league for college players.
“We were playing night games on the Cape, and they were playing night games in Omaha,” Polk recalled for his audience. “I had the scores provided to me, because I have a flip-top phone. I have a typewriter. I’m not on the internet. I am on Twitter. I have 20,000 Twitter followers; I don’t know how to get on Twitter.”
After Mississippi State defeated Texas, Polk was off to Providence, Rhode Island, to catch a plane to Omaha, where he watched the Bulldogs claim their first national title against Vanderbilt, and then flew right back to Cape Cod.
The bare-bones high school fields used in the Cape Cod League are a far cry from the palaces of modern-day college baseball, and Polk has seen the changes up close since coming to Starkville from Georgia Southern in 1975 at a salary of $15,000. But he sounds more amazed than annoyed at the arms race that has taken over college sports.
“Baseball has 11 full-time staffers at Mississippi State,” Polk said. “I had four 13 years ago. Football has 37; when I left here it was about 18 or 19. Why? Because everybody else in the SEC is doing it. We’ve got to keep up with everybody else.”
Then there are the facilities.
“We built a video board at Dudy Noble Field, 187 feet wide,” Polk said. “LSU just built one, 188 feet. Why? Because they can tell recruits ‘we’ve got the largest video board in college baseball.’”
Meanwhile, high school baseball programs often struggle. So when a school asks Polk to speak at an awards banquet or address a team, he jumps at the chance, never charging for his time.
“I do it because most high school baseball programs, especially in this state, they don’t get much budget at all,” he explained. “I remember last year speaking at a banquet where they were raising money. The kids had to go out and sell bedsheets door to door. So why should I charge a fee to a high school, a junior college or even a college?”
But a special assistant to the athletic director can’t focus on one sport.
“I had never been to a soccer game — ever — until last year when I became the special assistant to the athletic director,” Polk said.
He brought what you could call a unique perspective to the game, one he shared with MSU soccer coach James Armstrong.
“I said, ‘Why don’t you widen the goal posts?’” Polk recalled. “‘Why don’t you eliminate offsides? I want to watch a 38-35 soccer game,’ and he started crying in front of me.”
Mostly Polk is there to be supportive, whether it’s offering advice or calling a couple of very successful former players to donate funds for a weight room for the baseball team.
“I visit with the players, and I visit with the coaches,” he said.
Polk joked that he isn’t at all responsible for the football teams’ field goal kicking woes in its 31-28 loss to Arkansas on Saturday.
“I’m not in charge of field goal kickers, so don’t ask me about that. Mike (Leach) is having tryouts, I think on Wednesday. It could be a girl, it could be a boy, it could be transgender, whatever, as long as that person can put it through the goal posts so we can win a ballgame.”
There also was a serious message in Polk’s 35-minute speech, as three words kept cropping up: discipline, structure and accountability. The man soft enough to send birthday, Christmas and anniversary cards to every one of his former players from 55 years of coaching is tough enough to say what other people will not say.
Clearly no fan of the everybody-gets-a-trophy mentality, Polk thinks kids can handle far more than parents believe they can handle, again focusing on discipline, structure and accountability.
“If you’re working with kids … we’re not giving it to them,” Polk said. “I don’t know if we’ll ever get it back, but until we do, we’re going to have parents complaining, we’re going to have kids yelling at officials, we’re going to have kids fighting, and I’m glad I’m an old coach, to be honest with you. I’m not sure I could deal with this modern era.”
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