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35|35 Anniversary Website
This is the 32nd installment of a series of 35 moments, milestones, and facts that will be featured throughout the 2013-14 academic year to celebrate the 35th Anniversary of the Great Lakes Valley Conference.
Prior to the start of the 2014 GLVC Baseball Championship Tournament final, a former coach and a former player reunited along the first baseline at Bosse Field in Evansville, Ind., to catch up just as they do every time Quincy University brings its baseball team to Drury University. Current Drury athletics director Pat Atwell moved to Springfield, Mo., in 2007 after serving in the same position at Quincy following the departure of sitting AD Jim Naumovich, who left in 2000 to become GLVC Commissioner.
That same year, before earning the promotion at Quincy, Atwell served as the baseball coach and mentored a future major leaguer in Josh Rabe. The QU standout, who played three years for the Hawks from 1998-2000, was later put into the GLVC Hall of Fame at the 2007 induction ceremony by Atwell himself. Four years later Rabe returned to his alma mater as head coach and promptly led his Hawks to the 2011 GLVC title.
While the two West Division rivals will battle today for the 2014 conference crown, pitting this Drury administrator and Quincy head coach on separate baselines, both Atwell and Rabe will never pass up the chance to spend time together at the ballpark.