Tim Elko 'honored' by statue celebrating him and the 2022 Ole Miss national championship team
What became a rallying cry and motto during the Ole Miss baseball team’s improbable month-long run to the program’s first national championship came to fruition on Thursday.
Tim Elko put the Rebels on his back and willed them to Omaha and the national title. While doing so the phrase ‘build the statue’ became a grassroots movement. What started as potentially a tongue-in-cheek turn of phrase was considered by the Ole Miss athletics administration and created.
The statue was built and resides inside Oxford-University Stadium. A near life-size replica Elko forever immortalized in his pose seen many times circling the bases on Swayze Field after hitting a home run is stationed along the concourse on the third base side.
There is also a banner that has the headshots of all the players on the 2022 roster plus quotes from Elko and Ole Miss head coach Mike Bianco from during the national title celebration.
‘The Captain,’ as it states at the base of the statue, commented on it Saturday when speaking with Scott Merkin of MLB.com after his second game of spring training with the Chicago White Sox.
“I’ll be able to see it in the offseason,” Elko said. “Just an amazing university and I feel so special and honored for them to do that for me and for that national championship team. It’s pretty awesome.”
Elko was too busy doing what he does best this weekend, hitting the baseball very hard. On Friday he got the start in the White Sox first game of spring training, hitting a home run against the Chicago Cubs. on Saturday he got another hit, this time a single.
He is 2-for-5 with a run batted in and a home run through the first two games of spring training, despite not considered as one of the top 30 White Sox prospects by MLB Pipeline.
The statue of Elko is part of a new renovation plan by Ole Miss that will see 450 club seats added plus a champions plaza by 2026.
A project slated to cost $30 million saw the first steps begin by installing Elko’s statue in its temporary location for the 2024 season.
On Thursday the statue was unveiled during the Bullpen Club’s meeting and Elko’s parents were in attendance.
“Really cool, really cool,” Bianco said on Friday. “It’s one of the decisions that the administration made. We didn’t want the statue to sit for a couple more years while they’re renovating the stadium and the new First Champions plaza opens up that’s where it will eventually move outside the stadium. …But it’s four years after you won the championship and didn’t want it to lose some of its luster. So in fairness to Tim, fairness to his family and everything else, but then it’s kind of hard to do when you’re putting it up temporary.
“Tim’s playing (now). Didn’t seem to bother him. Hit a home run his first at-bat so that was really neat. I think special for his parents to be here and what a cool thing for your son to not only have the career that he’s had but what is there three statues in the athletic department and one of them is his.”
