Bob Baumann - A Coach's Life

(EDITOR'S NOTE: this is Part One of a two-part series)

What defines a coach?
The answer to that question, in part, depends on what level of the coaching ladder a person is standing on. In pro sports, winning is everything. At the collegiate level, winning is almost everything, as is the continued development of athletes. At the high school and grade school level, coaching comes with different responsibilities and objectives.
At all levels, winning is valued, and that means coaching can sometimes be a thankless and frustrating job done under the critical eye of public opinion.
George Halas, a legendary football coach and member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, was once asked what it takes to be a good coach. He replied: "Complete dedication."
Bob Baumann has dedicated his entire adult life to coaching. He has been a coach, in one form or the other, for 57 years. He spent 37 of those years at Concordia High School.
"I think that one of my greatest strengths as a coach was motivating the kids," Baumann said. "Not everyone can win. I wanted the kids to tell me how good he or she wanted to be, and what they could do to help the team. That's what I always strived for. I wanted the kids to set goals for themselves. A goal for a week, a goal for a year. And when they reached that goal, I wanted them to reach higher."
Robert Edward Baumann was born and raised in Oceanside, a community of 35,000 in Nassau County, 30 miles southeast of New York City. His father was a High School All-American football player in 1927, and a storied coach in the state of New York.
"Coaches were always coming to our house trying to recruit players," Baumann recalled. "When I was a kid, I saw Vince Lombardi and Tom Landry at our dinner table."
Baumann developed into a standout athlete in football and track. He ran the 440-yard dash in 48.8 seconds, then a New York record. His football coach at Oceanside High School was Joe Scannella, who went on to coach college and pro football, and was the special teams coach for the Oakland Raiders when they won Super Bowl XI.
At Oceanside High School - student population about 2000 - Baumann won nine letters in sports and was a state champion in the medley relay. In his senior year he was voted Oceanside MVP in both football and track. At the school's sports banquet, Frank Gifford, then a star halfback for the New York Giants, presented Baumann with his MVP awards.
Baumann wanted to go to the Naval Academy in Annapolis after he graduated from high school, and they wanted him. But he first needed to raise his math scores. "I still need to work on my math," Baumann said with a laugh.
The Naval Academy urged Baumann to enroll at a junior college for one year. At the high school sectionals track meet, he met a sprinter who was going to the Kansas State Teachers College (KSTC - now Emporia State University) on a track scholarship. Another sprinter was also going there.
"We talked, and one of the guys thought it would be a good idea if all three of us went. We'd have a great mile relay team! I said I'd go if I could also play football."
Baumann vividly remembers his journey to the Midwest. "That was the first time I'd ever been on an airplane. It was one of those old propeller planes. Really loud. We landed in Kansas City, and from there we were supposed to take a train to Emporia. In New York we had electric trains. In Kansas City I watched this old locomotive roll in with smoke blowing out the stack, and I thought: 'what the heck am I doing here?' I almost turned around and went home."
Baumann didn't go home, and though his days of playing football were cut short by a shoulder injury, the KSTC track team won three consecutive NAIA national championships.
Baumann graduated in 1962 with a double major in History and Physical Education. He went on to earn a Masters Degree in P.E. and Counseling in 1973.
While at KSTC, Baumann was an unpaid assistant coach at Roosevelt High School. He had discovered his calling. He wanted to coach.
"After I graduated, my coach (at KSTC) told me they needed a coach in Hartford, Ks. I asked him: a coach for what? He said: 'Everything.'"
Baumann spent five years at Hartford High School. "It was quite a difference. At Oceanside, my high school had around 2,000 kids. Hartford had 50 kids."
Baumann coached football, basketball, track, taught 7th and 8th grade social studies, spelling, geography, American history, World history, P.E., and driver's ed.
"I also drove the bus and swept the floor," he said with a laugh. "You did it all, because there was nobody else to do it. I was paid $4000 a year. My second year there, they gave me a $100 raise."
Hartford didn't even have a track. "We got one of those road graders and made a dirt circle around the football field."
Baumann remembers eagerly anticipating his track team's chances at the league tournament one year. Then rural life placed a hurdle in front of him. "Two kids came up to me and said they couldn't go to the meet because they had to farm. I was a city kid. This was a problem I'd never had before."
The league meet was being held in a town about 10 miles away. "We worked it out so one of the kids would compete in the morning while the other kid farmed. Then they switched places; the other kid competed and the first one did the farm work."
One evening, in his fifth year at Hartford, Baumann answered a knock at his door. Standing on the porch was Harold Clark. A graduate of KSTC, Clark often pursued other graduates from the college for teaching and coaching positions at Concordia High School.
"Harold Clark was a great man," Baumann said. "He really cared about Concordia and its schools. He wanted me to come and interview for an opening they had. I'd never heard of Concordia; didn't know where it was."
Baumann interviewed, and was hired as the Activities Director at CHS, and the assistant track coach. In 1968 he moved his family to Concordia.
"We didn't have very good facilities then. The pole-vault pit was sand; we had wood hurdles. There was grass growing through cracks in the track."
During Baumann's first semester on the job, Harold Clark called him into his office. 1968-69 was the height of the Vietnam War. The head track coach at CHS had just been drafted into the Army.
Baumann recalled what happened next: "Harold told me: 'Baumann, you're going to be the head coach now. If you don't win state this year, you won't be head coach next year.'"
CHS won the indoor state title.
"A head coach is only as good as his assistants," Baumann said. "I always had great assistants: Dick Switzer, Tom Brosius, Glen Walker, and George Meyer, to name a few. I don't want to leave anyone out; there were so many really good coaches with me."
Talented athletes are obvious. As a coach, Baumann was always looking for the diamond in the rough; the kid who didn't yet know - or didn't yet believe - that he could be great.
"One year I was in the press box watching a football game," Baumann said. "One of Concordia's players got hurt, and the equipment manager ran on to the field carrying his bag of supplies. I was amazed at how this kid ran: his length of stride; the power in his legs. After the game I went down to the field and told him that he should come out for track. He said he didn't know anything about running. I said: you're going to be on my track team, young man."
The young man's name was Ted Easter, who became a track and cross country star at CHS.
In his 37 years as the track coach, 17 years as the cross country coach, and 10 years as an assistant and head football coach at Concordia High School, Baumann's teams won four state championships, 16 regional championships, and 28 boys and girls NCKL championships. In 2002, the CHS boys and girls track teams both won league titles - a first-ever in the history of the NCKL.
During those decades, Concordia fielded over 100 state champions, including Baumann's sons Mike and Scott.
It's an incredible resume, for any coach, and Baumann saw greater glory on the horizon. An astonishing group of girl athletes were coming up from junior high. In a display of dominance never since equaled, those CHS girls won the 4A state track & field championship five years in a row, from 2005-2009.
Bob Baumann never got to be a part of it. In May of 2004 he was fired as the track coach at CHS.

COMING TUESDAY
Bob Baumann - A Coach's Life: Part Two