Corky Palmer was the heart and soul of Southern Miss baseball

By Stan Caldwell

stanmansportsfan.com

It usually only took one look at Corky Palmer to know who and what he was. He was a baseball man. And not just a baseball guy, but a catcher.

He had the build of a catcher, the bearing of a catcher, the walk of a catcher and he had the personality of someone whose playing gear is often referred to as, “the tools of ignorance.”

That’s not to say that Corky Palmer was ignorant. Oh no, far from it. Corky – he was always Corky to fans and friends – forgot more baseball than most people ever learn in their entire lives.

Corky passed away Wednesday afternoon at age 68. He never recovered from a debilitating stroke he suffered in 2020, finally succumbing after a two-year long battle.

Corky was a Hattiesburg lifer. He grew up here, where he attended Hattiesburg High, then played baseball for four seasons at Southern Miss before getting into coaching.

His coaching career took him all over the state of Mississippi, at high schools in Newton, Columbus and Columbia, then at Meridian Community College.

But he always came back to Hattiesburg, first as an assistant under Hill Denson at USM, then as head coach at his alma mater after a successful run at MCC.

Corky’s first stint at Southern Miss in 1985 and 1986 provided me with one of the great experiences of my life.

In the spring of ’85, less than a year after I started full-time at the Hattiesburg American, for some reason, I was assigned to cover the Metro Conference Baseball Tournament, as well as the Metro track meet, both being held simultaneously in Tallahassee, Florida.

I don’t recall why Van Arnold, the USM beat writer at the time, wasn’t given that assignment, but, as a rookie reporter, I sure wasn’t going to turn it down.

The catch was the paper wasn’t going to spring for a flight to Tallahassee and for a reason that I’ve long forgotten, I wasn’t driving, possibly because my wife had a less-than-year-old baby and needed transportation.

The solution, then, was that I’d ride with head coach Hill Denson and Corky Palmer. I seem to remember that there was another person with us, but I don’t recall who it was.

Almost the first words out of Denson’s mouth were to the effect that everything that is said on this trip is off the record. Which was fine with me, because that gave them the freedom to regale me with more great stories than I think I ever heard in one sitting.

It was certainly more fun than watching the Golden Eagles get ushered out of the tournament in two games. But from that humble beginning was the foundation of what Southern Miss baseball has become today, a nationally-ranked powerhouse.

The next season, with Palmer guiding the USM pitching staff, the Golden Eagles finished 31-30, snapping a string of five consecutive losing seasons, and the program has only had one losing season since, a 27-32 campaign in 2001.

Palmer’s record as a coach speaks for itself, and it speaks loudly.

In five seasons as a high school coach, his teams were 102-52. At Meridian, his teams were 409-160 in 10 seasons, during which time the Eagles made it to the NJCAA World Series twice, finishing third in 1994 and runner-up in ’96.

But it was at Southern Miss that Corky truly made his mark. In 11 seasons under his guidance, USM was 458-281, with eight NCAA Regional appearances, culminating in what is still the high-water mark for the program.

That came in his final season as a coach, in 2009, when he led Southern Miss to a regional win at Georgia Tech, followed by a two-game sweep at Florida in the Super Regional to reach the College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska, for what is so far the only time in school history.

What is not well-remembered is that the Golden Eagles were not a lock for a regional in 2009 after going through a 4-9 stretch in late April and early May.

Palmer had already announced that he was retiring at the end of that season, and there was a bit of a malaise surrounding the team as the season wound down, with a fair amount of fan discontent, which is often the price great coaches pay for success.

But Palmer rallied the troops, the Golden Eagles won four of their last five regular season games, then advanced to the championship game of the Conference USA Tournament, falling to Rice in the final.

That was good enough to get Southern Miss an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament, and the rest was history.

Unfortunately, the Golden Eagles went two-and-out at Omaha, dropping a 7-6 heartbreaker to Texas and an 11-4 loss to North Carolina in their final game. But that in no way diminishes a remarkable achievement by a remarkable team.

Among the standouts on that team was Brian Dozier, who went on to a very solid career in the big leagues after leaving the USM program, one of 19 of Palmer’s players that were drafted by major-league teams.

Summed up, in 26 seasons as a head baseball coach, Corky Palmer’s teams were 969-493, a winning percentage of 66.3 percent. He was deservedly honored in 2011 with induction into the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame for his coaching achievements.

As impressive as the raw data is, though, it barely scratches the surface of who and what Corky Palmer was, and what he meant to the Hattiesburg community.

It is no coincidence that a number of his players have gone on to success, in coaching and in other pursuits. He was a leader of men, as much as a baseball coach, and his players uniformly loved him like a surrogate father.

Off the field, Corky was a world-class raconteur. He could sit for hours at a café – often at the old Po-Boy Express on Fourth Street – spinning yarns to rapt listerners. The man had stories on top of stories, many of them hilarious, some of them ribald and all of them entertaining.

But when he put that uniform on with the big No. 44 on the back and stepped across the white lines, he was all business.

During the visitation for Corky at Hulett-Winstead Funeral Home in Hattiesburg Sunday, there were plenty of stories told, but one that sticks out came from Steve Knight, the longtime men’s basketball coach at William Carey University.

Knight has been associated with basketball so long that people sometimes forget that he was a great pitcher, both at HHS and Southern Miss, where he lettered all four seasons from 1975-78.

Knight was good enough to play professionally for several seasons in the minors before coming home to begin his coaching career at Carey, both as head baseball and basketball coach.

Knight is responsible for one of just eight no-hitters in Golden Eagle baseball history, in 1976. And it was Palmer who was behind the plate that day.

As Knight so aptly put it, “when he called a pitch, that’s what you threw. There was no arguing with him about it.”

That was the essence of Corky’s no-nonsense approach to the game. You could have fun off the field, but when you came to the ballpark, especially on game day, you’d better be ready to play and play hard.

Knight was just one of many fans, friends, former players, teammates and other well-wishers who filed through the historic old Tudor-style funeral home on Bay Street for more than three hours Sunday afternoon.

Prominent among these was current head coach Scott Berry, who inherited the Golden Eagle program after Corky retired and has maintained the level of success that started becoming commonplace during Palmer’s regime.

It was Berry who took over the Meridian CC program after Palmer left for Southern Miss, following six seasons as an assistant, adding two more NJCAA World Series appearances to the school’s ledger in four seasons as head coach.

Berry followed his mentor to USM in 2003 and brought his expertise as a pitching coach to Hattiesburg, and he’s been here ever since.

In all, the pair have contributed to one of the most remarkable records in all of college sports. Since 1959 when Pete Taylor became head coach, only four men have served the school as head baseball coach, a stability that is the cornerstone of the program.

Two of them, Taylor and Denson, have their names on the baseball stadium at Southern Miss. Since Palmer was responsible for many of the upgrades you now see at Pete Taylor Park, it would be fitting if the university finds some way to attach Palmer’s name to the facility as well.

Although it’s too early for anything official, I’m sure USM will do something to honor Palmer at the stadium. But even if it doesn’t, there is no way to understate the impact this man had on Southern Miss baseball and the Hattiesburg community.

Corky Palmer was the heart and soul of Southern Miss baseball, and his passing leaves a big hole that can only be filled with the memories of a great coach and a wonderful man. He was one of a kind, and we likely won’t see his kind around here again.

RIP Corky, you will be missed.

Stan Caldwell has been covering sports in the Hattiesburg area for more than 35 years.