Atwell’s Hall of Fame honor is product of decades of hard work and tribute to small-town roots

CANTON, Mo. — Pat Atwell enjoyed a trip down memory lane, and his family went along for the ride.

While the stories told may have been embellished just a little, what can’t be overexaggerated is the impact Atwell has had on multiple communities and countless people throughout a career as a standout baseball player, a highly successful coach and a respected athletic administrator.

The Culver-Stockton College athletic director was recently honored for his contributions to the game by being inducted into the New York Section V Baseball Hall of Fame during ceremonies at Frontier Field in Rochester, N.Y., prior to a Rochester Red Wings game.

“To go home for a celebration was really, really nice,” Atwell said.

It reunited Atwell, the former Quincy University baseball coach who grew up in Allegheny County, N.Y., and attended Andover Central High School, with coaches and players he’s known for the last 40 years, including his high school coach.

“He was telling stories to my son,” Atwell said. “Some of them were probably a little exaggerated.”

However, his numbers and his honors weren’t inflated.

Atwell was a four-time Allegany County All-Star from 1976-1979 and league MVP in 1978 after completing his high school career record with a .485 batting average. He played at Salem College in Salem, W.Va., where he was named outstanding freshman in 1980 and team MVP in 1982. He also led the Cook Inlet Bucs of the Alaska Baseball League in home runs in the summer of 1981.

Coaching became his calling after college, and after stints coaching basketball and baseball at SUNY-Alfred and Salem-Teikyo, he was hired as the baseball coach at Quincy University in 1991.

In 10 seasons as head coach, Atwell led the Hawks to a 288-200-3 record, the program’s first Great Lakes Valley Conference championship in 2000 and two NCAA Division II tournament appearances.

Along the way, he recruited and coached two players — Josh Rabe and Josh Kinney — who played Major League Baseball following their QU careers.

“The theme of my acceptance speech wasn’t about me playing high school baseball,” Atwell said. “It was really a fact that I watched all of these guys in these small towns where I grew up have such an impact on their community that I wanted to be a coach.

“Being a coach, I wanted to recruit small-town kids. I used the fact I wanted to be a big leaguer when I was recruiting. I really thought that would be my life plan and that didn’t work. But I was able to do something I enjoyed a lot and be a part of the lives of a couple of guys who did make it big from little bitty towns just like me.”

Atwell transitioned from coaching to administration in 2001 when he became the athletic director at Quincy. After six years at the helm, Atwell became the athletic director at Drury University for seven years. In 2014, he took over the reins at C-SC.

It’s fitting how a guy who grew up in a small town is helping a school thrive in a small town.

Atwell also is the first player from a school in the smallest of New York’s six classifications to be inducted into the Section V Hall of Fame.

“So for me, it was, ‘Hey, thanks for remembering the little guy,’” Atwell said.