STARKVILLE, Miss. - There are players' coaches throughout college baseball, but Ron Polk can take pride in his place as a coaches' coach.

Polk is stepping down after 29 years at Mississippi State following this weekend's series with Arkansas, and opposing coaches everywhere will consider smoking a cigar in his honor.

Polk, 64, is sure to light up another stogie - a traditional postgame indulgence for the Bulldogs' coach - after Saturday's game wraps up the Bulldogs' season and his tenure at Mississippi State.

Polk takes a 35-year record of 1, 371-699-2 into the series against Arkansas. If he doesn't coach another college game - Polk's decision earlier this season was to resign but not necessarily retire from baseball completely - his legacy among peers will be one of a crusader for coaches in their battles with the NCAA.

"He's the defender of our game," said Kentucky Coach John Cohen, who played for Polk at Mississippi State.

Polk is well-known for his battles with NCAA President Myles Brand and his organization - he even referred to the NCAA as "the enemy" during a teleconference Wednesday - and has long been an outspoken critic of cutbacks in NCAA baseball.

Some consider Polk's desire to improve the quality of college baseball and his campaign for more scholarships inspirational. Others have been rubbed the wrong way, dismissing his constant badgering as sour grapes.

Either way, it's impossible to deny Polk's passion for a game he's mastered during three decades at Mississippi State and shorter stops at Georgia Southern and Georgia.

"He loves college baseball," said Jay Powell, a first-round draft pick out of Mississippi State in 1993 who went on to have a productive major-league career as a pitcher and is now a head coach at Jackson (Miss. ) Academy. "That's his first priority, and he's fought for it all his life and it's something he'll continue to do. That shows up in the way he treats people, even the players he played and coaches he coached against."

Polk, a lifelong bachelor, considers his players family members, but he's also a friend to coaches everywhere, even those with no direct ties to him.

"When I first got into coaching, I never thought he knew who I was," Vanderbilt Coach Tim Corbin said. "He knows your name, knows where you came from. He's a remarkable man."

Polk is famous for sending out greeting cards to former players, coaches who played or coached under him or just those he admires in the business. Cohen estimates his old coach has mailed tens of thousands of cards, notes and letters over the years.

"Occasionally I'll lose someone's address and I'll hunt it down, call their parents or their employee," Polk said, suggesting it isn't as time consuming as some might think. "It doesn't take a heck of a lot of time."

Arkansas Coach Dave Van Horn first made it on Polk's list way back in the mid-1990 s when he was just another mid-major grinder at Northwestern (La. ) State.

"I didn't know Coach Polk very well, but every time you win a championship, he'll send you a card," Van Horn said. "On that old-fashioned typewriter, he'd write: 'Dear Dave, Congratulations on a Southland Conference championship.'

" He'd just blow you away. I think he even sent me a birthday card."

Cohen jokes that Mississippi State must have factored in a separate bill within the athletic budget to handle all the postage for Polk's correspondence, but Polk promises that he's paid for the stamps out of his own pocket.

"My wife Nelle and I get a 'Happy Anniversary' card every anniversary for 15 years. Every birthday, every Christmas," Cohen said. "When you play at Mississippi State, or if you didn't even play there, it's always, 'Did you get a card from Coach ?'"

Just don't call such a tedious process a labor of love. Polk doesn't see it that way.

"I think it's something you should do, not have to do," Polk said. "Why don't you pat them on the back and send them something ?

" More people need to do things like that in the world today."

Chances are, Polk will be the one getting the pats on the back this weekend.