Terry Baker
| No. 11 | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Position: | Quarterback | ||||||||
| Personal information | |||||||||
| Born: | May 5, 1941 Pine River, Minnesota | ||||||||
| Career information | |||||||||
| College: | Oregon State | ||||||||
| NFL draft: | 1963 / round: 1 / pick: 1 | ||||||||
| Career history | |||||||||
| |||||||||
| Career highlights and awards | |||||||||
| |||||||||
| Career NFL statistics | |||||||||
| |||||||||
Terry Wayne Baker (born May 5, 1941) is a former quarterback for the Oregon State University football team. He played for them through the 1960-1962 seasons. He is most notable for winning the 1962 Heisman Trophy and playing the Final Four in the NCAA Basketball Tournament in the same school year. To date, he is the only person to have both won a Heisman Trophy and played in the Final Four.[1]
Early life and education
Baker was born May 5, 1941 in Pine River, Minnesota. He attended Jefferson High School in Portland, Oregon and was a standout three-sport athlete for the school's teams, the Beavers.
Baker was a three-year letter winner in basketball, and led the Beavers to the Portland Interscholastic League city championship his senior year.
Baker was also a great baseball player. He earned a letter all four years of high school in baseball and led his team to the 1959 Oregon School Activities Association state championship.
Football, however, was Baker's most dominant sport. Baker played quarterback and tailback for the Democrats. In his junior and senior seasons, the Beavers were 23-0 and won two Oregon State Athletic Association 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. He also played football for Oregon State from 1960 to 1962, throwing for 3,476 yards and 23 touchdowns and rushing for 1503 yards and 15 touchdowns. He graduated with a B.Sc. in mechanical engineering in 1963.
1962 Heisman Trophy
On November 27, 1962, he won the Heisman Trophy for his achievements during that 1962 season. He was the first player to win that award west of Texas, and the only one ever to win from the Pacific Northwest. 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 1963 College All-Star Game, the last time the College All-Stars would ever defeat the reigning NFL champion.
Professional career
After graduation, Baker was the first overall pick in the 1963 NFL Draft, by the Los Angeles Rams.[2][3] He played with the Rams for 3 seasons, and then for the Edmonton Eskimos of the CFL, while earning a J.D. at the University of Southern California Law School.
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 #11 football jersey.
Baker's 99-yard run against Villanova in the Liberty Bowl remains an NCAA record, and because plays from scrimmage can never start from the goal line the record can never be broken, only tied. He is now retired from law practice, and still living in Portland, Oregon.
References
- ^ "Heisman Trophy". Retrieved 2008-01-05. [dead link]
- ^ "Terry Baker". pro-football-reference.com. Retrieved 2008-01-05.
- ^ "Beavers in the Pros" (PDF). Retrieved 2008-01-04. [dead link]
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
- 1941 births
- Living people
- All-American college football players
- American football quarterbacks
- Canadian football quarterbacks
- College Football Hall of Fame inductees
- Edmonton Eskimos players
- Heisman Trophy winners
- Los Angeles Rams players
- National Football League first overall draft picks
- Oregon lawyers
- Oregon State Beavers football players
- Oregon State Beavers men's basketball players
- Players of American football from Minnesota
- Players of American football from Oregon
- University of Southern California Law School alumni
- Sportspeople from Portland, Oregon
- Jefferson High School (Portland, Oregon) alumni