Tim Elko crosses home plate with two Ole Miss degrees and so much more.
Tim Elko’s journey to Commencement continues, but only on the baseball diamond.
Captain of the Ole Miss baseball team the past two seasons, Elko has completed his master’s in sports analytics after receiving his bachelor’s degree in exercise science. Leading his teammates to the postseason again is the immediate goal, with just a few games left in the 2022 regular season.
Elko and the Rebels have won four games in a row heading to LSU this weekend for a Southeastern Conference series. As the captain, he has attempted to help lift the squad through some rough patches this season. It’s what captains do.
“I try to be as good a leader as I can be,” said Elko, of Lutz, Florida. “But we say it all the time; it doesn’t matter if you are old, young, captain or not, we have so many leaders on this team. We’ve just got to keep everybody together, keep everybody believing and staying positive.
“I tell the guys, ‘Just keep playing.’ It’s the team that’s the hottest at the end of the year that does the best.”
Elko arrived at Ole Miss for the fall of 2017. There was a Super Regional for the Rebels in 2019. Then 2020 looked to be the Rebels’ big year, as the team started 16-1 and was highly ranked.
But that’s when not only did the baseball season come to an end, but basically the whole world changed as COVID-19 emerged.
“We were on the bus coming home (from Louisiana-Monroe), and we heard the Ivy League called off the rest of their season,” Elko said. “Once we got back to the stadium in Oxford, Coach (Mike) Bianco told us we would still play LSU that weekend at home, but there would be no fans because of this sickness that’s breaking out.”
Elko said the team accepted that, but what was said the following day was almost unbelievable.
“The next day, Coach (Bianco) told us our season was canceled. It was hard because we’d had such a good start. We had a really good team. It was a very weird and hard time.”
By the spring of 2021, the captain was ready for another season. But an injury early in that season made for some of the most interesting few months of his life.
That’s basically when the legend of Tim Elko was born. Playing for much of the season on a torn ACL, he attained almost folk-hero status as the season progressed toward another Super Regional appearance.
“It was a crazy year, to say the least,” said Elko, who had 16 home runs last season. “I started out having the best year I’d had since I’ve been here. Then I had the injury, and that was a rough couple of days. Found out that I tore it, but then talked to the doctor and he said I had a chance to come back and play.
I had a lot of people praying for me, and I was praying really hard, too. God healed my knee enough and gave me the strength to go out and continue to play.”
“They haven’t really seen a lot of baseball ACLs, so they didn’t have a lot of information about it. They said I could rehab and try it in three or four weeks. I was like, ‘Alright, I’m gonna go for it then.’
“I had a lot of people praying for me, and I was praying really hard, too. God healed my knee enough and gave me the strength to go out and continue to play.”
With every home run, run scored or run batted in, Ole Miss fans and media across the country marveled. After the season, however, Elko had to face the challenges of what was next.
“After the Super Regional, I went back to Florida and had surgery,” he recalled. “I was there for, like, two months until I came back for the fall and was just rehabbing. I did school but didn’t really do anything baseball-wise the whole fall. Once we came back after Christmas break, it was pretty much full go. I was hitting again and did the spring intrasquads.
“And the rest is history.”
He has always maintained a balance between baseball and academics. After he attained his exercise science degree, he turned to sports analytics for his master’s.
“I actually thought it was going to be more like what we use in baseball, like how important stats are and pitching analytics, things like that,” he said. “But it’s been more like statistical programs and learning different programs that people use. Less about actually what to do with sports. But it’s been interesting.”
Since the Ole Miss-Missouri baseball series fell during graduation weekend, Elko will receive his master’s recognition on May 16 in a special campus ceremony for student-athletes.
Back in high school, Elko had looked at several colleges to possibly attend. He was an excellent soccer player but had earlier given that up to focus on baseball. He had opportunities to play Division I college baseball, and he found that no place really measured up to Ole Miss.
“I played travel ball on the Orlando Scorpions,” he said. “We were playing in tournaments and (UM assistant) Coach (Carl) Lafferty came and watched me. I visited here and some other schools, and just fell in love with Ole Miss right when I saw it.
“From then on, I was comparing other schools like, ‘Ole Miss has this and Ole Miss has this.’ It was kind of an easy decision after seeing all the different schools. All the aspects of Ole Miss I liked the best.”
Having crossed the finish line with two degrees, Elko said that student-athletes must be more conscious of time management.
I couldn’t have made it through without (academic staffers) Shelia Padgett and Jennifer Saxon over at FedEx (Academic Support Center). They help all the student-athletes so much. It’d be tough to do what we do without people like them.”
“It’s tough in-season, for sure,” he explained. “Taking stuff on the road and doing homework in the hotel; not as fun to do that. You learn to do work when you’ve got time. That’s really the key to it. There’s not a whole lot of free time as it is. So when you do find time, you better take advantage of it.
“I couldn’t have made it through without (academic staffers) Shelia Padgett and Jennifer Saxon over at FedEx (Academic Support Center). They help all the student-athletes so much. It’d be tough to do what we do without people like them.”
As for baseball, it’s not over. But as Elko looks back, there are so many memories since his arrival almost five years ago.
“We won the SEC Tournament my freshman year,” he said. “We’ve won two regionals. I had a lot of cool moments hitting on my torn ACL. And had some cool moments this year, like being a part of back-to-back-to-back home runs. All pretty cool.
“The one thing I’ll never forget is the (grand slam) home run I hit last year in the (Oxford) Regional against SEMO. That was one of the coolest moments I’ll probably experience in my life.
“There were 12,000 people in the stands. I was still hurt. Just a really good moment, and it will be tough to forget that one.”
Those who have watched him play, and lead his team as captain, won’t forget Tim Elko either.
By Jeff Roberson, Ole Miss Athletics
