Call Me Coach Lessons Learned in 40 Years on the Sidelines

9780930753504

093075350X

From the time when, as a young boy on a small farm in Pennsylvania, he built a rudimentary baseball diamond using feed sacks for bases and "managed" his first game, a family pick-up affair at a corn roast, George "Budd" Baldwin has been passionately committed to coaching. sMoving with his family to the county seat of West Chester, Baldwin played in the first football game he ever saw. He went on to learn some of the intricate aspects of the games, as a stalwart on high school baseball and football, and community and American Legion baseball teams. The Great Depression seemed to doom young Baldwin's college prospects and coaching hopes, leaving him totally without funds. However, a recommendation from his high school coach got him a football and baseball scholarship to Bowling Green College in Ohio, and a local dentist and Legion baseball booster paid his bus fare. With the $65, he had managed to earn in the summer and two jobs on campus, and using borrowed books, Baldwin survived his freshman year and was on his way to attaining his goal of becoming a physical education teacher and a coach. Pearl Harbor dimmed that dream as Baldwin enlisted as a private in the Marines for the duration. He came back and got his degree after the war, however; and, starting his first job after graduation, he was thrilled to be introduced to the student body as Coach Baldwin.