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By John Hartsock
jhartsock@altoonamirror.com
Area high school football coaching legend Dave Baker announced his retirement from the sidelines last February after 44 seasons.
It was a very difficult decision, the 79-year-old Baker said, but it was also the correct one.
"It was time for me to retire,'' said Baker, who compiled a 245-211-11 career coaching record that included a 126-163-11 in 31 seasons at tiny Williamsburg High School -- whose program has since merged with Juniata Valley -- and a 119-42 mark in the past 13 seasons at Central that included seven District 6 championships and four appearances in the PIAA Class 3A state semifinals.
"I'm almost 80 years old,'' said Baker, whose Central teams won District 6 Class 3A titles in each of the last four seasons. "I'm pretty much worn out.''
Yet Baker will get one final coaching hurrah this Sunday, and it will be a very special one. Baker and his son, Jay, will serve as assistant coaches for the South All-Star Team in the 39th annual Lezzer Lumber Football Classic game, which kicks off Sunday at 5 p.m. at State College High School's Memorial Field.
To add another poignant twist, recently graduated Central player Max Baker -- Dave's grandson and Jay's son -- will be on the field for the South squad as a linebacker.
His involvement in Sunday's game will be a fabulous coaching swan song for Dave Baker, and an equally treasured family experience for his son and grandson.
"This is the last time that I will be doing any coaching at all, and it's the last time that Max and a lot of the other players in this game will play football,'' said Dave Baker, who is coaching the linebackers on the South team's defensive unit. "It's a good thing, and I am happy to do it.''
After Max Baker was selected to play in Sunday's game by the Central Pennsylvania Football Coaches Association, Hollidaysburg Area High School head coach Homer DeLattre -- who will be the head coach of the South squad -- served as the point man in getting the Baker clan all together on the South roster.
"It was sort of Homer's idea,'' Dave Baker said of DeLattre, who is also the athletic director at Hollidaysburg, where Jay Baker is employed as a business teacher. "Homer and Jay pretty much work together every day, and when Max joined the team, Homer asked Jay to help coach and he asked me to help coach.
"So that's sort of how it came about,'' Dave Baker added.
DeLattre is glad that the Bakers will get the opportunity to be on the football field together one final time on Sunday.
"Dave retired from coaching after last season and Jay is a teacher at Hollidaysburg who I consider to be a pretty good friend of mine, and who has had previous coaching experience with his father on the high school level,'' DeLattre said. "I wanted to give them all an opportunity to be together one last time on the football field, and I thought to myself that it would be a good idea for them to coach together again in what will be Dave's last game.''
Jay is a 1987 graduate of Williamsburg, where he played quarterback and safety when his father was the Blue Pirates' head coach. Jay was also an offensive line coach during Dave's head coaching tenure at Central, and Jay is coaching the South team's secondary players.
"It's nice to be on the football field with my dad and Max one last time, and I can thank Coach DeLattre for that,'' Jay Baker said. "It will be nice to see Max get one more chance at playing football -- he likes to be around the other kids and gets along well with them -- and it was really nice for Coach DeLattre to ask my dad and I to coach in the game.''
Jay Baker and his wife, Mary, adopted and raised two sons -- Max and his younger brother Mace -- who had both been born in Guatemala. Max played defensive end and linebacker on the Central football team the past two seasons, graduating this past spring, while Mace, who will be a junior this fall, is involved in football and rugby at Central.
"It's really special for us to all be in this game together,'' Max Baker said. "Since my granddad has been coaching all of these years, I've been on the football field ever since I was little. I was a water boy and once I got older, I was a ball boy. Then I moved up to becoming an actual football player playing for my granddad.
"It's been very exciting watching the Central football program grow, and exciting personally for me to have grown with it,'' Max said. "Ever since I was little, I always wanted to play football for my granddad. It means a lot to me just to have my granddad and my father there by my side coaching me in what will be the last game of my high school career.''