Former Dunwoody High School coach Tom Bass will be one of the five new inductees into the Georgia Dugout Club Hall of Fame as part of the Class of 2026.
GDC to induct five new members into Hall of Fame
The Georgia Dugout Club will induct five new members into its Hall of Fame as part of the Class of 2026. The six newest members are retired Dunwoody High School baseball coach Tom Bass, retired Marist coach Dan Perez, the late Joe Pope, Major League Baseball scout Jack Powell and the late GHSA umpire Jim Sneddon.
The group will be inducted during a ceremony on Dec. 12, 2025 at the Georgia Dugout Club annual Coaches Convention at the Atlanta Renaissance Waverly Hotel.
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Retired Dunwoody baseball coach Tom Bass.
Tom Bass
Dunwoody
Tom Bass is proud of his achievements as a high school baseball coach.
While the list includes state championships, region titles and coach of the year awards, it was the relationships Bass built with his players that mean the most.
Bass will be inducted into the Georgia Dugout Club Hall of Fame as part of the Class of 2026.
“This is a very big deal,” Bass said. “It’s a great honor to be recognized with many great coaches, assistant coaches, players and their families that I’ve had the honor of coaching with and steering them through life and baseball.”
Bass has 30 years of coaching experience, notably 15 he spent as the head coach of Dunwoody High School where he led the Wildcats to the 2007 Georgia High School Association Class 3A state baseball title. He was named Coach of the Year that season by the Georgia Athletic Coaches Association and the Georgia Dugout Club. He also was named the Atlanta Braves 400 Coach of the Year.
He was the 2006 DeKalb County Coach of the Year following a trip to the Georgia Class 3A semifinal round in 2006.
After spending 15 years as the head man at Dunwoody, Bass left Dunwoody High and became an assistant coach at Lambert High where he was the team’s pitching coach. He played an integral role in helping the Longhorns win the Class 5A state baseball championship as well as a national championship.
“Tom is the best I have ever seen at getting each player to understand the instruction he is giving them,” said Jamie Corr who was the head coach at Lambert in 2014. “His on-field coaching is second to none, but his ability to get an entire team to buy in to what we are trying to accomplish, or an entire school for that matter, is what makes him a Hall of Fame coach.”
Bass retired from the high school game after the 2018 season and went into administration where he has served as the school’s principal since 2022.
He also spent time coaching at Miramar High School in south Florida where he led the team to a state runner-up finish in 1992. At the time, it was the deepest any prep baseball team from Broward County had made it into the Florida state playoffs. That season, he was named the Broward County All-Sports Coach of the Year.
He said he does miss the high school game, but he stays around by coaching travel baseball.
But the relationships he said baseball helped him build are the most important.
In 2014 when Bass was inducted into the Georgetown University Hall of Fame, five of his former players from Miramar High showed up unannounced to lend their support.
“One of the greatest things to me is still being so close with so many of my former players,” he said. “That meant a lot when those guys surprised me in (Washington) D.C. in 2014 at the induction ceremony.
“That shows me the kind of influence that I had on kids through baseball and that I can influence the lives of young people.”
As a principal, Bass can still influence young people in a positive way.
“If a person can’t build relationships, they are not going to be successful,” he said.
Bass said his greatest accomplishment is watching his three daughters Katelyn, Danielle, and Jennifer grow up to be kind, caring, and successful adults.
He is also a member of the Dunwoody High School Hall of Fame.
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Retired Marist baseball coach Dan Perez.
Dan Perez
Marist School
Dan Perez continued Marist’s baseball legacy started by Jerry Queen and Steve Franks. In 11 seasons of leading the program, Perez may have outdone his predecessors who meant so much to him as a player and as a young coach.
The former Marist baseball head man will be one of five inductees into the Georgia Dugout Club Hall of Fame as part of the Class of 2026.
“When I got the phone call on that Saturday morning, I was very humbled,” Perez said. My thoughts immediately turned to Jerry Queen and Steve Franks, two guys who coached me at Marist and mentored me as a young coach. Those guys invested in me, and they were great men who influenced me.”
Perez played on Marist’s baseball state championship teams in 1983 and ’84, then returned to the school as an assistant coach. He played an integral role in the War Eagles winning state titles in 1990 and ’93.
He took over for Franks, a Georgia Dugout Club Hall of Famer, in 1995 and the program didn’t miss a beat. He guided the program to state runner-up finishes in 1999 and 2000, then won back-to-back state titles in 2002 and 2003.
His tenure included eight region titles, multiple Coach of the Year honors by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Georgia Dugout Club and the Atlanta Braves 400 Club. He finished with a 266-110 record in his 11 seasons.
He departed after the 2005 season when his late mother made him promise that he’d take care of his two young daughters.
Since his wife was a flight attendant, Perez said he wasn’t sure if he could devote full attention to the baseball program and spend enough time with his family. He ultimately stepped down and served as an assistant under legendary Marist head football coach Alan Chadwick.
“I transitioned out of baseball to football for reasons, but I took a little bit of pieces from baseball to football with me,” he said. “When you work with young people, coaching is teaching and teaching is coaching, but there is no question that my foundation was laid on the baseball diamond.
“But I wasn’t going to step away until we had found the right guy. I had coached against Mike Strickland when he was at South Forsyth. He and I got close and he came into Marist and elevated the program to where it is now.”
Perez often coached against Doug Jones (a GDC Hall of Fame coach) when Jones was at Brookwood. He knew Perez’s teams would always be well-prepared.
“Dan Perez is one of the greatest coaches I have ever known, regardless of sport,” said Jones, now at Prince Avenue Christian. “His teams embodied his personality and played the game at a very high level as evidenced by the success that was achieved. It was always an honor to be able to share the field and get to compete with his ball club.”
Perez still helps the baseball program with scouting and some duties off the field, but he always valued relationships with his players.
“Once you develop a relationship with a player and you become that guy, the one who cared about the kid before the player, that’s when you can the best out of young people,” Perez said. “Relationships have always been at the top for me.”
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The late Joe Pope who coached at Coffee High and Newnan.
Joe Pope
Coffee, Newnan
Joe Pope established himself as one of the premiere high school baseball coaches in the state. He remains one of the few prep coaches in the Southeast to win state baseball championships with multiple schools.
He will be one of five inductees to be inducted into the Georgia Dugout Club Hall of Fame as part of the Class of 2026.
According to an article written by Rob Grubbs of the Newnan Times-Herald, Pope began coaching in Apalachicola, Fla. in 1950 and won his first state championship in 1951. He later relocated to Winder and coached baseball and football. After the 1959 season, he left coaching and switched to a career selling books.
After nearly two decades, he returned to the field in 1977 at Madison County (Fla.) High School before taking over at Coffee in 1978. He guided the Trojans to a state runner-up finish a year later, then helped lead Coffee to three state titles in a four-year span.
In seven years at Coffee, he finished with a coaching record of 126-17.
Pope retired after the 1984 season and moved to the Newnan area to be closer to his son Alan and his family.
Pope returned to coaching as an assistant baseball coach in 1984, then three years later, he was back in the charge of the varsity baseball program where in his first year, he took the Cougars to a region title and a state runner-up finish in Class 4A in 1988, then the state’s highest classification.
He retired and became the athletic director for Coweta County Middle Schools.
But Pope wasn’t finished on the baseball diamond. He took back over the baseball program in 1990 and guided Newnan High to a state baseball title in 1991, his fifth state baseball championship in his career.
His last game coaching Newnan was on April 20, 1994. He passed away on August 20, 1994.
In 1995, Newnan High dedicated its baseball field to the legendary coach who won 318 baseball games in his career.
When Pope left Coffee, his assistant Steve Wight took over. In 1990, Wight led Coffee on a deep playoff run.
“They got eliminated early (at Newnan), and he never missed any of our playoff games,” Wight said. “I coached for him, with him and against him. He was my mentor.”
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Major League baseball scout Jack Powell.
Jack Powell
Major League scout
Jack Powell has spent a lifetime of scouting in Major League Baseball and a service to the Georgia Dugout Club. Powell will be one of five inductees into the GDC Hall of Fame as part of the Class of 2026.
When Powell started his scouting career, there were 24 Major League Baseball teams. He has seen six expansion teams added and he has seen first-hand how scouting has changed. From the old Jugs & Ray guns to Trackman, Powell has scouted for the Reds, Expos, Mets, Pirates, Braves and the Rays during his career. He has spent the past 18 seasons for the Twins. He has signed 22 total Major League Baseball players including players such as Rick Honeycutt, Tom Browning, Steve Pearce, Jose Bautista , Matt Moore, Matt Capps, Jeff Keppinger, Niko Goodrum and Byron Buxton.
He has also played an integral role in helping the Georgia Dugout Club with its annual Top 100 Underclassmen Showcase which has evolved into one of the top showcase and scouting events for high school players in the country.
Legendary scout Chet Montgomery scouted Powell and after his playing days had ended, Montgomery asked if he would be interested in helping him. Powell responded saying he didn’t know anything about scouting.
“He said, ‘Sure you do,’ “ Powell said. “You just don’t realize it. He told me that he’d help me. I had never looked at things through a scouting lens, but when you take that lens and put it into scouting, it changes how you see things.”
Powell blossomed into one of the top scouts in the country and annually is one of the top organizers for the Major League Baseball Georgia Scouts Association banquet. His laid-back approach has made him a favorite among coaches and players.
He said the call from Georgia Dugout Club Executive Director David McDonald to let him know his induction into the GDC Hall of Fame came as a surprise.
“I’m all about character,” he said. “I want people to see God working in me and if I’m not doing his work, then I’m failing. My dad was a Godly man and people remember him that way. I want people to remember me that way too.”
But Powell has his shares of humorous stories that come with scouting.
“Years ago when I was a younger scout with the Reds, I went into the home of a player to talk about the MLB Draft,” Powell said. “His mom and dad were all for it. He was a dual-sport player and I could tell something was not quite right. I told him what life would be like in the minors and told him his path to the big leagues wasn’t up to us.
“We talked and right up at the end, he seemed hesitant. I asked him if really wanted to play for us. He said that he didn’t want to play for the Reds because he didn’t like their socks. At that time, the Reds wore the low socks with the low pants and they weren’t allowed to wear stirrups. They also wore black shoes instead of white ones. But I couldn’t believe he said that. I promptly apologized for taking up their time and left the home."
Some of his greatest moments came when he got to know NBA superstar Michael Jordan, who after retiring from basketball, played baseball with the Chicago White Sox.
Powell has been a part of 10 World Series clubs, five of them winners and five runners-up.
But perhaps the highlight of his career came when he shadowed actor Clint Eastwood in the 2012 movie, “Trouble with the Curve”, where he spent three months working with the legendary actor.
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The late Jim Sneddon, longtime GHSA baseball umpire.
Jim Sneddon
GHSA umpire
Growing up, Jay Sneddon watched his father meticulously clean his umpiring gear many evenings.
“He would come home from the ball field and before he did anything else, no matter how tired he was, I remember watching him take off his shoes and polish them, so they'd be ready to go when he umpired the next day,” Jay said. “He loved umpiring that much.”
After more than 30 years umpiring baseball and softball in Georgia as the president of the West Georgia Officials Association, Jim Sneddon will be one of five inductees into the Georgia Dugout Club Hall of Fame as part of the Class of 2026.
The well-respected umpire officiated games ranging from youth leagues all the way to 19 Georgia High School baseball championship finals, featuring legendary Georgia prep players like Zack Wheeler and Jeff Francoeur. His son told the story of Jim meeting Wheeler before a Philadelphia Phillies game and getting the future Hall of Famer to autograph the back of the lineup card Jim had saved from a game he'd officiated when Wheeler played in high school.
To Jim, every game was the “most important” game to someone, and he treated it that way. From his first game to his very last, there weren't many he didn't remember. He could often be found chatting with former coaches and players about calls from years gone by.
He was a member of the West Georgia Umpire Association, Georgia High School Athletics, and served as the Commissioner of Georgia High School Baseball and Softball for many years. On top of the numerous high school state championship games, he also officiated women's college softball for the Southeast and Gulf Coast Conferences including the Women’s NCAA National Championship games. Jim also umpired fastpitch softball games during the United States Olympic trials in 1996. Off the field, he frequently served as Umpire-in-Chief and as a Trainer to evaluate and develop umpire talent.
“Jim had moved from Indiana in 1982 in a job transfer,” said Ken Skinner, who served as Secretary/Treasurer for the West Georgia Umpires Association. “I introduced him to Georgia umpiring and got him started. I always said you needed three things to be a good umpire. First, you had to be able to manage people without ticking them off. Second, you had to know the rules, and third, you had to know how to use good judgement. He had all those ingredients and more.”
Skinner said it got to a point where many coaches would call and ask for Sneddon specifically to officiate their games.
In 2015, Jim was selected as Official of The Year by the Georgia Athletic Officials Association. He is also a member of the American Softball Association (ASA) Hall of Fame.
Sneddon passed away on June 6, 2025.
Jay got the call that his dad was going into the Hall of Fame on the one-year anniversary of his death.
“It was nice to get the good news at an otherwise sad time for our family," Jay said. "It means a lot to all of us. Although it's bittersweet that he's not here with us to enjoy the recognition, we consider it a blessing because we know how much it would have meant to him."
Jay, the youngest of Jim's four kids and current head baseball coach at South Paulding High School, said his dad loved umpiring so much that when Jay finished college, Jim offered to send him to the Harry Wendelstedt Umpire School, the nation’s leading umpire school recognized by both Major and Minor League Baseball. Ultimately, Jay's passion for the game led him to coaching instead of umpiring, but it never diminished the ability of father and son to connect over baseball. Throughout the years, there was always a phone call from Jay to his dad after every game to provide a game report and discuss the highs and lows. Jim usually started each phone call by asking, “how were the umps?”
For Jim, baseball was a reflection of life not just for him, but for every player, coach and parent involved. What might be just another game to one person could be the moment another ball player hit his stride, or it could be a learning opportunity for a new coach, or possibly the only time a working parent had the chance to see their kid play. Jim saw all of these possibilities and took his role in those games seriously. Every game meant something to someone and being an umpire meant the world to Jim Sneddon.