Terry Wayne Baker (born May 5, 1941) is a former
American football
American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...
and
basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...
player. He played
college football
College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States.
Unlike most ...
and
basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...
at
Oregon State University
Oregon State University (OSU) is a public land-grant, research university in Corvallis, Oregon. OSU offers more than 200 undergraduate-degree programs along with a variety of graduate and doctoral degrees. It has the 10th largest engineering co ...
in
Corvallis, where he was a member of
Phi Delta Theta
Phi Delta Theta (), commonly known as Phi Delt, is an international secret and social fraternity founded at Miami University in 1848 and headquartered in Oxford, Ohio. Phi Delta Theta, along with Beta Theta Pi and Sigma Chi form the Miami Triad ...
. Baker played as a
quarterback
The quarterback (commonly abbreviated "QB"), colloquially known as the "signal caller", is a position in gridiron football. Quarterbacks are members of the offensive platoon and mostly line up directly behind the offensive line. In modern Ame ...
for the
football team
A football team is a group of players selected to play together in the various team sports known as football. Such teams could be selected to play in a match against an opposing team, to represent a football club, group, state or nation, an All-st ...
from
1960 to
1962, winning the
Heisman Trophy
The Heisman Memorial Trophy (usually known colloquially as the Heisman Trophy or The Heisman) is awarded annually to the most outstanding player in college football. Winners epitomize great ability combined with diligence, perseverance, and hard ...
as senior. In the spring of his senior year, he led the
basketball team
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...
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
The Los Angeles Rams are a professional American football team based in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The Rams compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) West division. The Rams play ...
of the
National Football League
The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...
(NFL) from 1963 to 1965. He then played for one season in the
Canadian Football League
The Canadian Football League (CFL; french: Ligue canadienne de football—LCF) is a professional sports league in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football. The league consists of nine teams, each located in a ci ...
(CFL) with the
Edmonton Eskimos
The Edmonton Elks are a professional Canadian football team based in Edmonton, Alberta. The club competes in the Canadian Football League (CFL) as a member of the league's West Division and plays their home games at the Brick Field at Commo ...
in 1967. Baker was inducted into the
College Football Hall of Fame
The College Football Hall of Fame is a hall of fame and interactive attraction devoted to college football. The National Football Foundation (NFF) founded the Hall in 1951 to immortalize the players and coaches of college football that were vote ...
in 1982.
Early life and education
Born in
Pine River, Minnesota, Baker was raised in
Portland, Oregon
Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous co ...
, 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
State may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Literature
* ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State
* ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States
* ''Our S ...
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
The point guard (PG), also called the one or the point, is one of the five Basketball positions, positions in a regulation basketball game. A point guard has perhaps the most specialized role of any position. Point guards are expected to run t ...
on the
Oregon State basketball team, and quarterback in
football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...
, but was a halfback as a sophomore 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
A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years.
The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University of ...
in
mechanical engineering
Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and mathematics principles with materials science, to design, analyze, manufacture, and ...
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
The Maxwell Award is presented annually to the college football player judged by a panel of sportscasters, sportswriters, and National Collegiate Athletic Association head coaches and the membership of the Maxwell Football Club to be the best all ...
and the
W. J. Voit Memorial Trophy The W. J. Voit Memorial Trophy was awarded by the Helms Athletic Foundation from 1951 to 1978 to the outstanding college football player on the Pacific Coast. The recipient was determined based on votes cast by West Coast football writers and later ...
in 1962, was a consensus first team
All-American, was named as the ''
Sports Illustrated
''Sports Illustrated'' (''SI'') is an American sports magazine first published in August 1954. Founded by Stuart Scheftel, it was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the National Magazine Award for General Excellence twic ...
''
Sportsman of the Year
Since its inception in 1954, ''Sports Illustrated'' has annually presented the Sportsman of the Year award to "the athlete or team whose performance that year most embodies the spirit of sportsmanship and achievement." Both Americans and non-Amer ...
,
[ was a Helms Foundation Award recipient and won 14 player of the year awards, including from AP, UPI and '']The Sporting News
The ''Sporting News'' is a website and former magazine publication owned by Sporting News Holdings, which is a U.S.-based sports media company formed in December 2020 by a private investor consortium. It was originally established in 1886 as a pr ...
''. He also played in the College All-Star Game in Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
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on August 2, 1963, the last time the collegiate stars defeated the reigning NFL champion
Throughout its history, the National Football League (NFL) and other rival American football leagues have used several different formats to determine their league champions, including a period of inter-league matchups to determine a true national c ...
.
Baker's 99-yard run in the first quarter against Villanova in the frigid Liberty Bowl
The Liberty Bowl is an annual American college football bowl game played in late December or early January since 1959. For its first five years, it was played at Philadelphia Municipal Stadium in Philadelphia before being held at Atlantic City ...
(in Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
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
The Los Angeles Rams are a professional American football team based in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The Rams compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) West division. The Rams play ...
,[ ] He was also the ninetieth pick of the AFL draft
The Australian Football League draft is the annual draft of unsigned players, especially new nominations, by Australian rules football teams that participate in the main competition of that sport, the Australian Football League (AFL).
History
W ...
in the twelfth round by the San Diego Chargers
The San Diego Chargers were a professional American football team that played in San Diego from 1961 until the end of the 2016 season, before relocating to Los Angeles, where the franchise had played its inaugural 1960 season. The team is now ...
). The Rams had drafted Roman Gabriel
Roman Ildonzo Gabriel Jr. (born August 5, 1940) is a former American football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL). He was the second overall pick in the 1962 NFL Draft and played for the Los Angeles Rams for eleven seaso ...
in 1962 and had Zeke Bratkowski
Edmund Raymond "Zeke" Bratkowski (October 20, 1931 − November 11, 2019) was an American football player who was a quarterback in the National Football League (NFL) for 14 seasons with the Chicago Bears, Los Angeles Rams, and Green Bay Packer ...
on the roster as well.
Before going into training camp with the Rams, he led the College All-Stars to victory in the Chicago College All-Star Game
The Chicago Charities College All-Star Game was a preseason American football game played from 1934 to 1976 between the National Football League (NFL) champions and a team of star college seniors from the previous year. It was also known as the ...
that matched them against the defending NFL champion (Green Bay Packers
The Green Bay Packers are a professional American football team based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The Packers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC North, North division. It ...
), the last time the college team would beat an NFL team before the game was discontinued in 1976. When Baker arrived in camp, he dazzled in the presentation of calling out signals and handing the ball out while doing soft throws for warm-up lobs. However, as camp went on, it was discovered that he did not have a strong arm to throw the ball hard more than a general lob, as his arm was used to rolling out to throw in college rather than throwing a straight pass from the pocket. The result was that while he could throw short passes capably, his attempts at long passes would turn into easy balls for interceptions due to low velocity. A game against the Detroit Lions
The Detroit Lions are a professional American football team based in Detroit. The Lions compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) North Division. The team play their home games at Ford ...
saw him picked apart for three interceptions (one returned for a touchdown). He went 6-of-12 for 72 yards while rushing four times for 21 yards in a 23-2 loss. Four games later, he went 5-of-7 for 68 yards with one interception versus the Chicago Cardinals while running five times for 25 yards. These were his only two games where he served as a primary quarterback (aside from two games where he was sent to throw one pass). He scored his only touchdowns in his final season of 1965. He caught 8 passes for 82 yards against the Chicago Bears on September 26; he caught a ten-yard pass from Bill Munson in the fourth quarter that served as the go-ahead points in a 30-28 win. The next week against the Minnesota Vikings, Baker caught a 38-yard pass from Gabriel in the first quarter, but the Rams lost 38-35 while he caught four passes for 61 yards. He scored his last touchdown on October 17, 1965, rushing the ball one yard in his only carry against the San Francisco 49ers in a loss.
In total, Baker rushed 58 times for 210 yards in his career with thirty catches for 302 yards in three seasons with the Rams as quarterback-turned-halfback-turned-receiver before he was released in the summer of 1966. He went to the Edmonton Eskimos
The Edmonton Elks are a professional Canadian football team based in Edmonton, Alberta. The club competes in the Canadian Football League (CFL) as a member of the league's West Division and plays their home games at the Brick Field at Commo ...
of the Canadian Football League
The Canadian Football League (CFL; french: Ligue canadienne de football—LCF) is a professional sports league in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football. The league consists of nine teams, each located in a ci ...
(CFL), while earning a J.D. at the University of Southern California Law School
The USC Gould School of Law, located in Los Angeles, California, is the law school of the University of Southern California. The oldest law school in the Southwestern United States, USC Law traces its beginnings to 1896 and became affiliated with ...
, studying at night during football and full-time in the offseason. A pulled muscle in the groin alongside a dispute about a contract while he tried to take the bar exam in Oregon led to the end of his career. 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
The College Football Hall of Fame is a hall of fame and interactive attraction devoted to college football. The National Football Foundation (NFF) founded the Hall in 1951 to immortalize the players and coaches of college football that were vote ...
in 1982 and the Oregon State University Sports Hall of Fame in 1988. Oregon State has retired his No. 11 football jersey, the only number retired by the football team.
See also
*
References
Further reading
* Beau Riffenburgh
"Terry Baker: A Different Success"
''The Coffin Corner'', vol. 9, no. 7 (1987).
External links
*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Baker, Terry
1941 births
Living people
American football quarterbacks
American players of Canadian football
Canadian football quarterbacks
Guards (basketball)
Edmonton Elks players
Los Angeles Rams players
Oregon State Beavers football players
Oregon State Beavers men's basketball players
All-American college football players
College Football Hall of Fame inductees
Heisman Trophy winners
Maxwell Award winners
National Football League first-overall draft picks
Oregon lawyers
Jefferson High School (Portland, Oregon) alumni
USC Gould School of Law alumni
Sportspeople from Portland, Oregon
Players of American football from Portland, Oregon
Basketball players from Portland, Oregon
American men's basketball players
Lawyers from Portland, Oregon