Terry Baker
Terry Wayne Baker (born May 5, 1941) is a former American football and basketball player. He played college football and basketball at Oregon State University in Corvallis, where he was a member of Phi Delta Theta. Baker played as a quarterback for the football team from 1960 to 1962, winning the Heisman Trophy as senior. In the spring of his senior year, he led the basketball team to the Final Four of the NCAA tournament. To date, he is the only athlete to win a Heisman Trophy and play in the Final Four. Baker was the first overall pick in the 1963 NFL draft and played with the Los Angeles Rams of the National Football League (NFL) from 1963 to 1965. He then played for one season in the Canadian Football League (CFL) with the Edmonton Eskimos in 1967. Baker was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1982.
Contents
- 1 Early life and education
- 2 College career
- 3 Professional career
- 4 Later years
- 5 See also
- 6 References
- 7 Further reading
- 8 External links
Early life and education
Born in Pine River, Minnesota, Baker was raised in Portland, Oregon, and attended its Jefferson High School, where was a standout three-sport athlete. Baker was a three-year letter winner in basketball, and led the Democrats to the Portland Interscholastic League city championship his senior year. Baker was also a great baseball player; he lettered all four years and led Jefferson to the 1959 state championship.
Football was Baker's most dominant sport and he played quarterback and tailback for the Democrats. In his junior and senior seasons, the Democrats were 23–0 and won consecutive state championships. As a senior, he threw for 1,261 yards and ran for 438 yards.
College career
Baker played point guard on the Oregon State basketball team, and quarterback in football, but was a halfback as a sop*re in 1960. He threw for 3,476 yards and 23 touchdowns and rushing for 1503 yards and 15 touchdowns, and graduated with a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering in 1963.
On November 27, 1962, Baker won the Heisman Trophy for his achievements during the 1962 season. He was the first player from a school west of Texas to win the award. In addition to winning the Heisman, he also won the Maxwell Award and the W. J. Voit Memorial Trophy in 1962, was a consensus first team All-American, was named as the Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year, was a Helms Foundation Award recipient and won 14 player of the year awards, including from AP, UPI and The Sporting News. He also played in the College All-Star Game in Chicago on August:2, 1963, the last time the collegiate stars defeated the reigning NFL champion.
Baker's 99-yard run in the first quarter against Villanova in the frigid Liberty Bowl (in Philadelphia in mid-December 1962), the only score in Oregon State's 6–0 victory, remains an NCAA record. Because plays from scrimmage can never start from the goal line, the record can never be broken, only tied.
Professional career
Baker was the first overall pick in the 1963 NFL Draft, taken by the Los Angeles Rams, (he was the ninetieth pick of the AFL draft; twelfth round, San Diego Chargers). He:played with the Rams for three seasons and then for the Edmonton Eskimos of the Canadian Football League (CFL), while earning a J.D. at the University of Southern California Law School. He then returned to Portland where he was a founding partner at the law firm Tonkon Torp.
Later years
Baker was inducted into the State of Oregon Sports Hall of Fame in 1980, the College Football Hall of Fame in 1982 and the Oregon State University Sports Hall of Fame in 1988. Oregon State has retired his No. 11 football jersey.
See also
- List of NCAA major college football yearly total offense leaders
References
Further reading
- Beau Riffenburgh, "Terry Baker: A Different Success", The Coffin Corner, vol. 9, no. 7 (1987).
External links
- Terry Baker at the College Football Hall of Fame
- Terry Baker at Heisman.com
- Career statistics and player information from NFL.com:·:Pro Football Reference
- Terry Baker Oral History Interview