Luke Atkins

[bomanishus]

I was wondering if the topic of Luke Atkins' transfer to State in light of his former program's recent success had surfaced so I did a quick search in hopes of not bringing up something that had been heavily discussed recently.

Found no recent discussions, but did find some interesting comments from early May about Luke, Corky, Berry, etc. I tried to paste them here but they looked weird so I'll recap a comment or two:

- that Atkins never got on the good side of Corky and was almost forced to transfer. No rationale on why Corky didn't like him because he apparently played very well when used.
- that Corky wasn't liked within the USM family. That's surely changed, as one of the reasons given was "no post season success".
- that Corky's retirement was forced.
- Berry is apparently their version of Raffo.

Anybody talked to Luke recently?
</p>

 

[Wooderson]

like me, it would appear, knowing what we know now, with USM in the CWS and all, that Adkins transferred because he wasn't going to play. He went from that to a starter on a less talented team that barely finished over 500 while his former team, well, it speaks for itself. not hard to read between those lines.

Results speak for themselves, perfect example of what went on during the Polk II error. didn't he end the year on the bench for our team, too?

 

[Paper Dog]

nt

 

[o_1984Dawg]

Wasn't he the one who transferred to be closer to his mom who was sick or something like that? And I was thinking he was a good player for them and initially Corky didn't want to let him go but eventually did, obviously.</p>

 

[Todd4State]

Adkins was supposedly benched because of his defense. Adkins transferred to MSU because of lack of playing time. He did not agree with the USM coaches on this matter. It's pretty cut and dried.

Now as far as Palmer- I have a good friend that knows a lot about their program. First of all, Palmer was going to be forced out because he had not made it to a SR. At the time of Corky's retirement announcement, it looked like USM was going to miss the postseason all together, and in light of the season that they are currently having I'm pretty sure he would have been in retained, but as of April/May this year, Corky was gone. USM fans were fed up with him having teams that lacked pitching and teams that couldn't make it past the regionals. A lot of their fans had high expectations coming into this year, with them having a ton of seniors and guys like Todd McInnis, who won C-USA pitcher of the year, but the pressure started to mount from within from their boosters when they started to flounder.

Palmer knew that this was going on. In light of the Polk situation, he retired late in the season (which is a very odd time to retire when you think about it), and he did not name a successor, but Berry was going to be named. After Palmer retired, USM said they were going to do a search, but less than a week later Berry was announced as Palmer's replacement. Palmer had worked all of this out with USM's AD beforehand. There really was no search.

I don't know what my friend thinks of Berry, but I know at the time before their run to Omaha that a lot of USM people didn't care for him. I think they see Berry as same old, same old. Things certianly may have changed now.

 

[bomanishus]

NR

 

[Wooderson]

except Corky is retiring a hero. he didn't know it at the time though, as you said, just happened that way. It will be the same old, same old for them. Especially with the outflow of talent they are getting hit with this year. </p>