George Baker started his football coaching career at Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, but he ended it across the street
at Henderson State University. He also traveled the world as an infantry officer and volunteer coach in the U.S. Army.
Once he retired from teaching, he felt a need to fill his time. Now he’s written three books and is a member of the Caddo River Art Guild. Baker spends most of his days creating utensils from wood, preferring to use green wood. He uses the money from sales to buy more supplies.
He’s also the primary distributor of When Lightning Struck the Outhouse: A Tribute to a Great Coach Ralph “Sporty” Carpenter, a book Baker wrote about his longtime idol and head coach Sporty Carpenter. All sales from the book go to a scholarship fund for student-athletes who will play football at Henderson.
From an early age, Baker was interested in football. He was raised by a father who taught him to be tough and in an Alabama neighborhood that would produce seven college football players in his age group, three of whom won national championships under legendary coach and Arkansas-native Paul “Bear” Bryant.
“I was born in Thomasville, Alabama,” Baker said. “It was the toughest neighborhood I ever lived in. It was five of [the players] in one house, and they came out every morning ready to fight. They were good boys. It’s unbelievable the kind of success they’ve had. It’s just a unique place, and I just don’t know how many University of Alabama football players and Auburn players have come from that little ol’ town. We moved when I was 10 years old. We moved to Georgia, into a place called Fargo. It’s down in the Okefenokee Swamp. My daddy worked for a guy that owned a mill down there.”
A strike at the local lumber mill brought the Bakers and other families in to work. Baker said his family was seen as an encroaching presence by the families who had worked the mills for generations. The hostile attitudes of the local population made fighting commonplace.
“It was a rough part of the country,” Baker said. “We had to get up and fight almost every day because the man that my daddy worked for bought the mill, and he fired all of them boys that lived there and brought in us Alabama people. It was war.”
Baker attributes his toughness on the football field to the volatile environment he lived in and said he considers his father’s tutelage another catalyst in his hard-nosed attitude.
Baker attended Ouachita Baptist University in 1961 and played for the football team. He was enrolled in the ROTC program and finished as a distinguished military graduate, which
allowed him to enter the military with
a regular commission as an officer in the Army. He requested to be enlisted as intelligence, military police or general infantry. But he was instead chosen for an artillery detail. Baker said he decided that rather than work an artillery detail using his regular commission, he would decline and become an infantry officer, accepting a reserve commission.
As part of his service, Baker took part in an experimental flight to measure the effects of high-altitude flights on soldiers. He rode in a B-52 at an altitude of 60,000 feet.
“It tickled me to get to do that,” Baker said. “That’s 10 miles out. I don’t have a single friend who’s a pilot that’s ever flown that high. Only way you would ever fly that high is if you was in a B-52. That’s almost in space.”
Baker’s family has a long history of fighting in American wars, including the Civil War, although Baker only recently discovered that an ancestor fought for the Union forces, opposite another ancestor. Baker kept with tradition and served in Korea during the Vietnam War.
“I fought in Korea in 1967-68,” Baker said. “I was in that area for nine months drinking the [Agent Orange-contaminated] water, bathing in it, cooking with it.”
Baker was discharged as a first lieutenant and was granted disabled veteran status by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs for his exposure to Agent Orange, although he said he doesn’t let the lingering effects of the exposure slow him down. He’s a hard worker, the type who can’t just sit still.
Upon his return to the U.S., Baker began coaching football and teaching at OBU. After four years as OBU’s defensive coordinator, he moved across the street to Henderson.
Baker coached on both sides of the ball, as offensive and defensive coordinator. In his coaching career, he spent 16 years with Carpenter. In that time, Baker helped recruit current Henderson president Glendell Jones from his hometown of Blytheville as an offensive tackle.
Baker said Jones was a good prospect, but his mother was concerned about his college career being cut short by injury.
Carpenter answered her concern by saying, “Glendell will be at Henderson until he decides to leave, or he graduates,” Baker said.
Jones never played a down for the Reddies because an injury befell him and ended his football career, Baker said. Carpenter visited Jones in the hospital as he was on the phone with his mother, sobbing. Jones said, “I’m going home, I’m dying.” Baker said Carpenter took the phone and told Jones’ mother, “Mrs. Jones, Glendell can die here just as easily as he can in Blytheville.”
Jones stayed at Henderson and graduated. He came back to Henderson as president in 2012.
Although Baker takes time to chronicle Carpenter’s legacy and give back to the football program at Henderson, he still wakes up early to make breakfast for his wife and to craft utensils. Baker’s woodworking and writing have been things that have kept him busy, but they reward him as well. Baker has been carving for more than 25 years, and his studio is one of the stops on the Round About Artist Studio Tour that is held in October.
“I enjoy a lot of success in what I do,” Baker said. “I sell everything I carve.”
Baker’s life doesn’t revolve around football anymore, although he defended Pete Carroll’s infamous play call at the end of Super Bowl XLIX. Now Baker spends his time in his woodworking shop or playing mandolin in a local bluegrass band.