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Richmond head coach Ron Atkins knows the feeling of success, and that success spans from 1985, when he took the Spider job, to the 2004 season when he finished his 14th winning season at Richmond. Since joining the Atlantic 10 Conference in 2002, Richmond has posted a record of 178-120, an 82-40 mark in the Conference, earned two NCAA Tournament appearances and had four All-Americans. In their inaugural Atlantic 10 year, Atkins led his team into postseason play for the seventh time in school history. The 2002 Atlantic 10 Coach of the Year then led his team past Navy and Wake Forest to capture the Winston-Salem Regional Championship. After a three-game Super Regional series loss at Nebraska, the Spiders returned to Richmond with a school-record 53 wins and eight new single-season team marks including runs, RBI, hits and doubles. In 2003, Atkins led the Spiders, who began the season ranked No. 9 by the NCBWA, to their first Atlantic 10 Championship and again into the NCAA Tournament. Richmond travelled to Sunken Diamond in Palo Alto, Calif., and fell in the Regional Championship to eventual College World Series runner-up Stanford. In his Richmond career Atkins' teams have set many marks, but as a coach he has also accomplished greatness. In his 15th season at the helm Atkins became the winningest coach in school history by winning his 435th game, surpassing Malcolm Pitt's mark of 434 wins in 37 years. On April 20, 2001, Richmond garnered a 10-3 win over James Madison helping Atkins earn his 500th career win in only 890 games. Since then he has picked up win number 600, and followed it up with number 650 during the 2005 season. Atkins, who has announced his intentions to retire following the 2007 season, was named a 2007 Spider Athletics Hall of Fame Inductee and was enshrined alongside his 2002 Super Regional squad prior to the 2007 baseball season. In 22 years at Richmond, Atkins has compiled a record of 685-512-4 and, from 1990-1999, guided the Spiders to 10 consecutive winning seasons and four NCAA Tournament Appearances. The Spiders have won 30 or more games in 10 of the last 16 seasons under Atkins, the winningest all-time coach in Richmond athletics history. Under Atkins' direction, many Spiders have caught the eyes of professional scouts, most notably Atlanta Braves' first baseman/outfielder Brian Jordan (1988 Draft, St. Louis) and Detroit Tigers' first baseman Sean Casey (1995 Draft, Cleveland). Countless other Richmond alumni have joined baseball's professional ranks. A record five players were taken from the Richmond roster by Major League Baseball in 2003. Junior Tim Stauffer was one of those five and became the highest drafted Spider in school history. Stauffer, a native of Saratoga Springs, N.Y., was taken fourth overall by the San Diego Padres in 2003. In 2004, Jim Fasano, Bobby Lenoir, Thomas Martin and Bryan Pritz signed professional contracts. Last season, Ben Zeskind was drafted in the 37th round by the Toronto Blue Jays and was named a New York-Penn League All-Star in his first season of professional baseball. The Spiders have consistently had a strong program under Atkins. In only his second season at Richmond he tied the school record for most wins in a season with 24. Two years later his 1988 team posted a mark of 26-33 to the surpass the old mark. Beginning in 1990, Atkins' squads topped its win record in three consecutive seasons, moving the mark to 32 in 1992. In 1994, Richmond posted 36 wins and then broke that mark in 1995 with 43 wins. Over the next six seasons the Spiders' best win total was 41 before they posted the current record of 53 wins in 2002. Atkins amassed a 159-118-1 record in his 16 seasons in the Colonial Athletic Association from 1986-2001. Under his direction, Richmond won two-straight Colonial Athletic Association titles in 1997 and 1998, and advanced to the CAA Championship finals in eight of 16 seasons. Richmond, which finished its 15-season run in the CAA with a Conference Tournament mark of 36-25, finished second in the 1995 CAA Tournament but was awarded its third NCAA invitation. After finishing atop the league in 1999, the Spiders finished fourth at the CAA Tournament but were awarded their second NCAA at-large bid in five years. Atkins has taken the Spiders to seven of Richmond's eight NCAA Tournament appearances (1986, 1995, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2002 and 2003). The southwest Virginia native was a CAA Coach of the Year in 1991 after posting a Conference mark of 15-2. In 1999, after garnering a record of 41-17 and 15-5 in the CAA, he was named Conference Coach of the Year and the State of Virginia Coach of the Year. Atkins' team recorded the best season in school history in 2002 (53-13) by winning the Winston-Salem NCAA Regional and advancing to the NCAA Super Regional in Nebraska. Following the landmark season Atkins was awarded his first-ever Atlantic 10 Coach of the Year Award, along with the VaSID Coach of the Year honor. Atkins became the sixth head coach in Spider baseball history in 1985 after posting an .813 winning percentage at J.R. Tucker High School in Richmond, Va. His teams captured four District Championships and four State Class 3A crowns. A 1967 graduate of Virginia Tech, Atkins earned his master's in industrial education from Virginia State University and taught at J.R. Tucker for 17 years prior to arriving at Richmond. Atkins and his wife, Rose, have two children, Katie and Andy.
Atkins' Milestone Wins
Atkins' Career Record
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