North Fulton Today

An endowed scholarship has been established in honor of a former Georgia Tech baseball player who was diagnosed with ALS last year.

According to a university issued press release, the “Friends of Jim Poole” created the endowment to recognize Poole and how his legacy will continue to have an impact on members of the baseball team.

“I am honored and humbled by the creation of the Jim Poole Scholarship for Georgia Tech Baseball,” Poole said in the release. “The entirety of my time on campus as a student-athlete shaped me like no other period of my life. My many failures made me stronger. My successes were earned and empowering. Coaches and professors demanded my best, teammates and classmates kept me accountable, alumni offered wisdom and counsel and my friends (most especially my wife Kim) helped create memories that never fail to generate smiles and heartfelt laughter."

After his arrival on the GT campus in 1985, Poole helped the Yellow Jackets clinch the first of four consecutive conference tournament crowns.

He still holds the school record for career saves with 22, including 10 as a junior and nine as a senior and was named all-ACC his last two seasons, the release said.

Poole was a 34th round selection of the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 1987 MLB Draft, but he chose to finish his academic and athletic career at The Flats.

Graduating with a degree in electrical engineering in 1990, Poole would move on to MLB where he crafted an 11-year career playing for the Baltimore Orioles, Cleveland Indians and San Francisco Giants.

Life after the pros saw Poole return to GT to help support the baseball team through the Alexander-Tharpe Fund.

ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord that affects people between the ages of 40 and 70.