Saturday, February 15, 2025

What defines a coach? A tribute to Bob Baumann

A reprint of December 23 and 24, 2019 news article of the Blade-Empire

Posted

COACH BOB BAUMANN PASSED AWAY ON JANUARY 21, 2025.

ON DECEMBER 23 AND 24, 2019, THE BLADE-EMPIRE PUBLISHED A TWO-PART STORY ON COACH BAUMANN'S LIFE, WRITTEN BY STAFF WRITER RUSSEL GAGNON.

THE KANSAS PRESS ASSOCIATION NAMED GAGNON'S STORY THE SPORTS FEATURE STORY OF THE YEAR IN DAILY DIVISION 1 IN THE STATE OF KANSAS.

WE ARE REPUBLISHING THE STORY IN MEMORY OF A BELOVED COACH. REST IN PEACE, BOB BAUMANN.

 

Part 1: 

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.

 

Part 2: 

Bob Baumann has been a coach for 57 years. He coached at Concordia High School for 37 of those years. His CHS track and cross country teams won four state championships, 16 regional championships, and 28 NCKL titles. Baumann counts over 100 state champions from his teams, including his sons Mike and Scott.

In May of 2004, Baumann was fired from CHS.

"The principal, vice-principal, and athletic director called me into the office," he recalled, "and I was told that I wasn't coming back to the school, in any capacity. I was told to turn in my keys and clear out my stuff."

37 years at CHS. Dismissed in one day.

"It was one of the worst days of my life," he said. "None of them ever told me why I was being fired. Over the years I've heard a lot of hearsay, but the people who fired me said they didn't have to explain their reasons."

The dismissal hit Baumann hard. 2004-05 was an arduous year. His wife was dying of cancer; Baumann had lost a kidney in his own battle with cancer a few years earlier; and he was fired from the job he had dedicated his life to.

In early 2005 Baumann suffered a stroke.

"To be honest, I don't think I ever really got over being let go," he said. "It was hard for me to understand."

Coaching can be a thankless job at times. There will always be fans, but also critics. Even the greatest of coaches, in all sports, have been dismissed from their jobs. What measuring stick gauges success? Wins and losses; titles; championships?

Booker T. Washington once wrote: 'Success is measured not so much by the position that one has reached, but by the obstacles which he has overcome.'

Bob Baumann has overcome a lot of obstacles in life, and always lived by a mantra instilled by his father: never quit. His coaching style was Old School; sometimes he taught with tough love. He has his fans and he has critics, but there is no denying the one fact that means the most: Bob Baumann inspired generations of kids to believe in themselves.

Steve Boling, a former runner for CHS, wrote on a Facebook post: '...other than my Dad, Coach (Baumann) may have been the most influential man in my life. He taught a youngster that if you want to be great, you got to put in the work to go get it.'

Rick Haden, another of Baumann's former student/athletes and now the cross country coach at CHS, also posted on Facebook: '...to this day I still use many of the things I learned from him (Baumann) in my coaching. I hope I can instill within my runners the love, passion, commitment and dedication it takes to be a good and great runner like he did for me and so many others.'

"That's the main thing I tried to instill in all the kids I coached," Baumann said. "Whatever your talent level is, give me your best. Show me you care. Titles and championships are one thing; but watching a kid give it all they had, that meant a lot to me."

After he was dismissed from coaching at CHS, Baumann wasn't sure what to do with himself. Aside from his family, all that was important to him, all that had been the passion of his life for 40 years was taken away.

A phone call in the summer of 2005 changed everything.

Gary Loring was a teacher and coach at Pike Valley, in Scandia. "Gary called," Baumann said, "and he and Don Melby wanted to know if I would help coach at Pike Valley."

When Baumann recounts the phone call, his voice chokes with emotion; his eyes mist with tears. He was being given another chance. "Coaching is what I do. It's who I am. I didn't think I'd ever get the chance to coach again. That phone call meant so much to me."

Baumann is beginning his 16th year as an assistant track coach at Pike Valley. He's seen a lot of changes in coaching, especially at the high school level. "Things are just done differently now, on all levels. The kids have changed; dealing with parents is different now. You're never going to make everyone happy. That's part of the coach's life. But the one thing that hasn't changed is what's inside a kid's heart. The champions are all highly motivated to achieve. Their work ethic, what they do on their own time to make themselves great, that will never go away."

Baumann loves all sports, and that extends to wrestling. For 27 years he was one of the top wrestling officials in Kansas, and refereed hundreds of state championship matches. But if he had to pick a favorite sport, it's track & field.

"A track meet has 18 events," he said. "With the relays, that's usually 54 kids competing as a team. It really pushes you as a coach. Track takes a lot of effort and hard practice. In track, if you want to be good, there's no cutting corners."

When he's not coaching, Baumann likes to work on the 27 automobiles he owns. "If the weather's nice, my son Mike and I spend a lot of time with the cars. Sometimes we get Scott to fix them, because he used to spend so much time tearing them up!"

Baumann did not want to leave out his daughter Dawn. "She was a great pole vaulter, but they didn't have that event in girls track when she was in high school. She made it clear that she could do anything the boys could do."

Bob Baumann is 78 years old now, and fighting a second battle with cancer. "I already lost one kidney, and now I got a tumor the size of a fist wrapped around my other one." The tumor has attached itself to the renal artery; surgery is not an option. "I take chemo pills every day. They're trying to shrink the tumor. It's been difficult sometimes. I forget things, and I'm tired a lot. But I can handle that. I was brought up to never quit. On anything."

Legendary basketball coach John Wooden once said: A good coach can change a game. A great coach can change a life.

When Baumann reflects back on his 57 years of coaching, what means the most are the former students and athletes who reach out to him. There are letters and postcards and photographs - hundreds of them - kept in scrap books and photo albums.

"They'll write me, or stop me on the street or call my house." Baumann paused to wipe at the tears in his eyes. "They tell me how much I meant to their lives. How I taught them to believe in themselves; to work hard to succeed. That's what means the most to me. Knowing that I made a positive difference in a kid's life."

The tributes continue to pour in on social media. Eric Nelson wrote: 'One of my favorite teachers and coaches... he always brought out the best of everyone who he taught'. From Kevin Fall: 'Incredible coach... he made all of us our very best.' On Facebook Lawrence Walton said: 'Coach Baumann had such a strong influence on my life. It was because of his influence I went to college on a track scholarship and was an educator for 30 years.'

Bob Baumann's journey is measured not by miles traveled, and not even in victories won. Measure the man by how many lives he impacted; how many lives he changed. His journey was dedicated to a singular cause: helping kids find the best in themselves.

Despite a debilitating stroke and battles against a relentless cancer, Bob Baumann will not quit; he will not go quietly into that long night. Some day the game clock will run out, as it will for all of us. When it does, Bob Baumann will leave behind a six-decade coaching legacy that is hard to equal.

That, in and of itself, says a lot about the coach.  And the man.