As Mississippi State baseball prepares for the SEC tournament, a surprise speaker took the stage at the annual Ferris Trophy Ceremony on May 19.
Ron Polk, the legendary former MSU coach, stepped in for interim coach Justin Parker to speak about trophy finalist Ace Reese. Polk’s speech was filled with humor, including a joke about not being a candidate for the head coaching position following Chris Lemonis’s firing on April 28.
Polk, who coached the Bulldogs across two periods for a total of 29 seasons (1976-97 and 2002-08), also teased Ole Miss coach Mike Bianco. Polk now serves as a radio analyst for MSU baseball.
“First, I want to make it clear to everyone that I am not a candidate for the Mississippi State baseball job,” Polk said. “I think that will make Mike very happy. Mike and Luke (Hill), you won’t have to face me next year — I’ll be in the radio booth calling our wins against you.”
Southern Miss pitcher JB Middleton won the 2025 Ferris Trophy, awarded annually to the top baseball player in Mississippi. Middleton is the fifth Golden Eagles player to win the award, and the first since Tanner Hall in 2022.
Later in his speech, Polk took a lighthearted jab at Missouri, who Mississippi State recently swept, outscoring them 50-11. Ace Reese, a sophomore third baseman who transferred from Houston, earned SEC Player of the Week honors on May 19 after hitting .667 (8-for-12) with three doubles, four home runs, six RBIs, 11 runs scored, and five walks against Missouri.
“Did you know he hit .402 in the SEC this year?” Polk said. “.402. We can thank Missouri’s pitching staff a little for that this past weekend. They were bad. Everyone from Missouri, I’m sorry, but they just weren’t very good. Mike (Bianco) knows that, right?”
The guest speaker for the ceremony was three-time MLB All-Star pitcher Roy Oswalt, who also became the subject of a joke from Polk. Oswalt, a native of Weir, Mississippi, had committed to Mississippi State after playing at Holmes Community College but signed with the Houston Astros in 1997 instead.
“Roy, great to see you,” Polk said. “Yeah, he took the money. He’s still got the two cars our boosters gave him… We couldn’t come up with enough money to get him to Mississippi State University.”
