(Griswold) Steve Baier has over 40 years of coaching experience in multiple sports and at a wide variety of levels. The man who led Griswold to the 1984 State Wrestling Title also spent some summers coaching MINK League baseball.
Baier admits teaching and coaching wasn’t exactly ‘Plan A’, “No, not at all. In fact, when I was in college and my older brother took a teaching and coaching job I told him I said, ‘You’ve got to be desperate to work if you’re going to let your success depend on what a bunch of 16-year-old’s do.’ Low and behold a couple of year’s later I found my self doing the same doggone thing.”
He had already graduated from college without taking any teaching courses, but due to desegregation there were a lot of teaching opportunities and Duke University offered a special opportunity. “Duke initiated a very aggressive program of recruiting people to teach in the public schools. They had basically a two year program where you could earn a Master of Arts in teaching. I signed up for that and looked at it as kind of an adventure. I told me wife Barb we’d just do this for a couple of years and then get on with the rest of our life. It ended up being eight years in North Carolina.”
He coached wrestling in North Carolina along with launching a cross country program and being an assistant for track. He started in 1973 and laughs when he recalls being paid in rolls of quarters out of the pop machine for his coaching supplement. “He gave those to me on Tuesday and Tuesday night was poker night at his house, so I probably coached for about free that first year.”
Baier summarizes how what was supposed to be a two year detour in life became a career. “I enjoyed coaching and it’s one of those things that the more I did it the more it kind of grew on me. I enjoyed it and enjoyed all the different facets of working with kids and helping kids develop and improve themselves. It really did grow on me.”
He called it fun, enjoyable, and rewarding at every level. A brush with greatness came when he was coaching college summer league baseball with the Omaha Indians. “We had a 19-year-old in 1998, a right handed throwing first baseman/third baseman we were told from the University of Texas-Arlington. Boy, he was pretty raw, but he had a pretty lively arm. One night down in Clarinda we put him in to pitch relief. I don’t know if the lights were a little dark at Clarinda or if he was really throwing that hard, but he was untouchable that night. We used him some more and that was John Lackey. He didn’t play for the University of Texas-Arlington anymore, but but had a long and successful career. In fact, just two years after we had him he won the 7th game of the world series for the Anaheim Angels.”
Of course he had a slew of great wrestlers at Griswold in the 1980’s. He arrived in 1981 and by 1984 the Tigers were 2A state champs. They did it despite not having any individual champions. Five wrestlers took either 2nd or 3rd. Baier gives a lot of credit to Jim VanBuskirk and Brad Hildebrandt for laying the foundation through their and hard work. “That sparked a lot of determination in the underclassmen. By the time we got to that Class of ’84, Jim’s younger brother Rex, Darren Holst, Kirk Russell, Mark Emsick, Tim Tietz, Chris Conrad, those guys were seniors. They were as tough as any bunch of kids you could ask for. We had good underclassmen coming in, Dan Mueller and Brad Reipy stand out it in my mind.”
Another success story is that of Dan Fitzpatrick from his days in North Carolina. After being cut by the high school baseball team, Fitzpatrick was recruited by Baier to join cross country with the incentive that they’d get to work on his pitching each day at cross country practice. Fitzpatrick made the baseball team the next year, fast forward a handful of years and he became the NCAA record holder for saves.
Baier got out of high school coaching when his son Fritz was playing baseball at Wofford so he could have more freedom to travel to games. His coaching days weren’t done however. He worked for many years as a junior high wrestling coach in Atlantic and also picked up a freshman baseball gig one summer with the Trojans.
Previous Coaches
(Click to listen)
John Kesselring, Adair-Casey alum
Eric Maassen, (AHST grad) Sheldon
Jerome Hoegh, Atlantic grad (West Sioux)
Gaylord Schelling, Atlantic and Tri-Center
Dick Strittmatter, Atlantic native
Chad Klein, Audubon Native (Kuemper Catholic and Boone)
In Memory of Bob Monahan, Audubon (Monte Riebhoff)
In Memory of Bob Monahan, Audubon (Steve Ahrendsen)
In Memory of Bob Monahan, Audubon (Scott Weber)
In Memory of Bob Monahan, Audubon (Curt Mace)
Warren Watson, Elk Horn-Kimballton
Chris Stimson, Elk Horn-Kimballton
Scott Yates, Elk Horn-Kimballton
Jan Jensen, Elk Horn-Kimballton alum
Seth Poldberg, EH-K grad and Guthrie Center coach
Trevor Gipple, (Griswold grad) SW Valley
Angie Spangenberg, Harlan and Red Oak
Eric Stein (Harlan grad) Iowa Central
Darrell Burmeister, Nodaway Valley
Lanny Kliefoth, Nodaway Valley
Chad Harder, (Walnut Grad) Tri-Center
