Polk says lost fight with NCAA led to his resignation

JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI - Ron Polk fought the NCAA and the NCAA won.

That's the Mississippi State coach's spin on his resignation, which caught all but his closest friends by surprise. New NCAA rules mean coaches will soon have to pare their rosters to what Polk considers the bone, and he wants no part of it.

``The NCAA and I don't like each other,'' Polk said late Friday night in his first comments to the media since announcing his resignation Thursday. ``They don't like me and I don't like them. It has become a war.''

One Polk feels he lost, though he never once retreated.

The NCAA turned back Polk's efforts in January when it voted to accept changes in baseball that included cutting rosters. The NCAA also eliminated baseball's onetime transfer rule and shortened the season.

Sam Houston State coach Mark Johnson, a member of Polk's first staff at Mississippi State, said he talked with Polk twice a week during the fight.

``The battle he was fighting was one that had to be won, otherwise we'd lose ground with baseball,'' Johnson said. ``The coaches are starting to realize it even more now as we get into our shortened season and we all have to reduce our squad size here shortly. All the things that Ron was predicting certainly are going to come true.''

Polk was successful in forcing a reconsideration of the changes adopted last fall, then revised before January's vote. His 18-page letter beseeching anyone who would listen to help has become something of legend. He personally typed all 1,421 address labels on a typewriter and repeatedly apologized in the text for the letter's length.

``I wish right now for everyone reading this letter I could offer you a cup of coffee or a soft drink, so you could take a little break from this letter that is now eight pages long,'' Polk wrote. ``Yes there are still more pages.''

As is his custom, Polk followed his joke with a serious message. He tells readers in the same paragraph that if the NCAA changes the rules that allow him to keep partial-scholarship players and walk-ons on his roster, he'll make his exit from a 35-year head coaching career.

He kept his word Thursday when he told players he planned to leave at the end of the season.

``I made the decision as soon as we lost the vote on the NCAA baseball committee,'' Polk said. ``The NCAA has decided to put the screws to the kids and the coaches in college baseball. I truly believe that. And I am not going to work for an organization like that that I hated to begin with.''

Skip Bertman, the LSU athletic director and longtime baseball coach who's known Polk for more than 40 years, thinks the sport will lose a true fighter when he walks away.

Bertman said Polk pushed for changes that helped make the SEC the nation's premier baseball conference, was a trailblazer in facilities financing and always delivered on the field where he's yet to have a losing season.

``If I had a son, I'd want him to play for Ron Polk,'' Bertman said.

Polk's 1,361 wins at Mississippi State, Georgia and Georgia Southern put him in the top 10 in career victories and he's fifth on the active list. He's taken teams to eight College World Series and been to the NCAA playoffs 24 times, including five straight.

Johnson said Polk's peers will remember him for his prowess on the field. Perhaps more importantly, they'll remember him for the good he did off it as well in his fight with the NCAA.

``To be honest with you I felt like he might burn himself out working that so hard,'' Johnson said. ``He was so passionately obsessed with this issue. He really put a lot of time and money into it. The coaches really appreciate that.''