Hugh Atkins is a member of the Grantland Rice-Fred Russell Nashville Chapter of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR). He wrote a weekly column entitled “The Way the Ball Bounces,” mostly about baseball, for his local newspaper in Pleasant View, Tennessee for eleven and a half years. Hugh worked in the field of public health for 40 years, serving as the Director of Environmental Health with the Tennessee Department of Health and then as the Bureau Director of Environmental Health for the Metro Public Health Department in Nashville. He was inducted into the Tennessee Environmental Hall of Fame in 2018.

Hugh graduated from Cheatham County Central High School in Ashland City, Tennessee and from Austin Peay State University in Clarksville where he was a member of the Theta Tau Chapter of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia— Brotherhood of Music. He and his wife reside in Pleasant View. Their son, Sean, lives in Nashville.