When Damian Baker arrived on the Carson-Newman University campus in the summer of 2014, Andy Hibbett did not think much of him.
But Hibbett, a senior running back, was one of the best players on the school’s football team, so it was part of his responsibility to make Baker, a junior transfer from Northwest (Miss.) Community College, feel welcome on the Jefferson City, Tennessee, campus.
The fact that Baker would likely be in line to take Hibbett’s place as the team’s featured back in a year made it even more appealing for Hibbett to ease Baker’s adjustment from the community college ranks to the upper echelon of Division II football.
Still, something about Baker did not sit right with Hibbett.
“His attitude sucked,” Hibbett said. “It seemed like he didn’t want to be here and, honestly, I didn’t talk to him much and we stayed away from each other.”
A year later, Hibbett, now a graduate assistant on the Carson-Newman staff, talks about Baker like he is a different man. In many ways, he is, because Baker nearly had the game he loves taken away from him.
Instead, the former Columbus High School standout realized he had to make a change and become a better man and teammate. In the process, he opened his heart to God, which soothed the anger he felt for missing what he felt were bigger opportunities he believed should have come his way.
Baker’s transformation has put him in position to realize things he never imagined. In addition to the all-region, all-conference, and All-America honors Baker has earned since the end of his senior season, he is one of eight finalists for the Harlon Hill Trophy, given annually to the Division II College Football Player of the Year.
For Hibbett, who was a finalist for the Harlon Hill Trophy last year, the growth he has seen in Baker is amazing.
“As much as he had grown to that point in the summer (of 2015), if me and him would have went out to eat, I wouldn’t have gone with him,” Hibbett said. “Now I will take him out to eat and pay for his meal.”
Hibbett isn’t the only one who has seen the 5-foot-8, 195-pound Baker become a new man.
Nurturing a heart
Ken Sparks has coached thousands of student-athletes in 36 seasons as a coach.
The winningest active head coach in the country doesn’t have any secrets. He prefers to follow his Christian principles and to believe in players who commit to his system.
As Carson-Newman’s running backs coach, Nick Reveiz’s job was to help Baker learn the tenets of Sparks’ program, absorb the playbook, and ease his transition to a new school.
The relationship did not get off to a good start on June 28, 2014, the day of Baker’s first workout with the Carson-Newman football team.
“When I first started coaching Damian, it involved me yelling at him and him yelling at me,” Reveiz said. “It was a pretty rough relationship.”
To better understand the issues the Carson-Newman coaches had with Baker and the problems he had being on a new team, you have to examine how Baker arrived at a school more than six hours from home.
A four-year starter at Columbus High, Baker rushed for 50 touchdowns and attracted plenty of interest from college coaches. He opted to take his first step at Northwest and play for coach Ricky Woods. Baker rushed for 1,161 yards and 10 touchdowns and played a pivotal role in the Rangers winning their first bowl game in 20 years. But Woods left the school after the season and was replaced by Brad LaPlante in January 2013.
The coaching change didn’t stop the Division I offers from coming in.
“I probably talked to half of the MAC (Mid-American Conference) and all of those mid-majors and maybe two Big Ten, three ACC, a couple of Big Ten, and a couple of SEC schools,” LaPlante said.
But LaPlante wasn’t sure he was going to get to coach Baker because Baker transferred from Northwest to East Mississippi C.C. for the spring semester. When Baker decided Scooba wasn’t the right place for him, he transferred back to Northwest.
The colleges remained interested, but LaPlante said Baker’s academics were an issue. A lot of schools came to Senatobia and asked about Baker but declined to give him an offer because of his transcript.
Baker’s production dipped to 841 yards and five touchdowns in his second year with the Rangers.
Still, Baker harbored dreams of landing an offer to play at a Division I school. When he wasn’t able to graduate in December, the interest disappeared.
“It never was going to be a question because of his athletic ability, his size, or his speed,” said LaPlante, who was fired shortly after the 2013 season. “The only thing that prevented him from going to a high level school was going to be academics.”
LaPlante said he and his coaches had a framework in place to do grade checks and for the players to attend study hall. He feels confident Baker would have been able to realize a Division I opportunity if he had two years with him at Northwest.
As it turned out, Baker’s academics were good enough to earn him a scholarship to Carson-Newman, a tradition-rich program in the South Atlantic Conference.
But Reveiz didn’t feel like Baker wanted to be there.
“He came into the season and didn’t work that hard,” Reveiz said. “We could tell he was really talented and tried to push him and he didn’t respond that well. He got better throughout the season, and by the end of the (2014) season he started the last couple of ballgames. He didn’t play as well as he could have, and he was not truly all into what we were doing and being a football player at Carson-Newman.”
Turning points
Even after finishing third on the team in rushing with 515 yards and scoring six touchdowns, Baker considered transferring after his junior season.
Part of his disillusionment was being so far from home. It was the first time he had been that far away and he felt home sick and guilty for not being in Columbus to help his mother, Claudia, take care of his older brother, Javonte, who was diagnosed with brain cancer when he was 11 and had a stroke when he was 13.
Another part of Baker’s unease: Not getting a shot to play Division I football.
“It played a major role,” Baker said of the anger. “Every day I walked around with a chip on my shoulder and anger on my shoulder. Most days it came out and really affected my playing time.”
Baker’s anger nearly cost him his chance to play football at Carson-Newman.
Reveiz said the coaches talked him out of transferring and gave him an ultimatum in January after he said Baker refused to do a punishment run to make up for things that happened in the 2014 season. Because of that, and his overall attitude toward academics, he was kicked off the team. Reveiz told him the team would re-evaluate his status following the spring semester.
Baker said some days without football were depressing. Others were relaxing because he had a chance to sit back and concentrate on school like he needed to.
But losing football was just part of the equation. He was “at war within himself” and having trouble coming to peace with his identity and his place in the world.
He had no idea a decision to attend a Fellowship of Christian College Advance in February in Crossville, Tennessee, would be help him figure out how to put everything together.
The annual gathering, which Sparks said wasn’t mandatory for any of Carson-Newman’s student-athletes to attend, attracts college students from Tennessee. He said more than 60 students from Carson-Newman attended the “camp experience” where attendees are encouraged and energized spiritually.
Frank Reynoso, national inner city coordinator for the FCA, helped Baker make the connection he needed at the three-day camp.
“I encouraged him that all things are possible and that it doesn’t matter where you are from or what you have been through or what mistakes you have made,” said Reynoso, who lives in Florida and does most of his work there and in New York. “God is great at taking us from broken places and bringing restoration to us.”
Reynoso said he encouraged Baker and others at the College Advance to “take a stand” and to make a proclamation of their dedication to God. In an attempt to show the students how to do that, Reynoso said he told a story about how people can hear a lion roar up to five miles away. He said there are a lot of reasons why a lion roars and that the students had to find a way to roar back at everything in their lives that was holding them back. If they did that, he said, they would realize they are serious about taking on their “impossibilities” and that they were a force to be reckoned with.
Reynoso said he saw a “progressive revelation” in Baker that he was beginning to understand he was who God said he was.
“I am telling people it is possible for God to get you out of the pit,” Reynoso said. “The only reason I say it with conviction is because I was in the pit and He helped get me out. If I can do that, it was worth being in the pit.”
Baker said he talked multiple times with Reynoso at the camp and realized he could fine peace of mind after everything that happened in his life.
“I made the decision that the best thing and the right thing for me to do was to become a team player,” Baker said. “I told the coaches I was going to make a full commitment and that my attitude was going to be right.”
Upbeat and ready
Claudia Baker said Damian Baker always had been a humble child.
But after seeing her son lose focus and miss out on an opportunity to play Division I football, she admitted she watched him “pull back” and lose interest.
When Damian lost his spot on the Carson-Newman football team, Claudia encouraged her son to stop making excuses and to push himself to get his academics in order so he could get back onto the team. She said made an effort to call him every day. She hoped her calls and the support from other family members would be enough to make a difference.
In Claudia Baker’s eyes, Damian’s decision to attend the Fellowship of Christian College Advance allowed the change he needed to happen.
“I noticed we would call and talk and he would be more happy and upbeat,” Claudia said. “He said, ‘Mom, I am focused. I want to do it.’ Every time we called him I could hear it in his voice that he is changing into the young man he is today…he realized that despite all of the time wasted, God has given him another opportunity to do what he wants to do.”
Claudia said it wasn’t surprising to see Damian make the transformation. She understands it was difficult for him to deal with his brother’s cancer and his stroke. She also knows it has been challenging for him to be the father of two children, Damian II and Dalayshia.
But Claudia gives her son perhaps the biggest compliment when she says he has turned out to be a lot like her father, Tillman Baker Jr., who has worked at the Columbus Brick Company more than 50 years.
“I have always told him, ‘Damian, you have a gift from God. You just have to walk in your gift,'” Claudia said. “I don’t know if it was missing home or him having kids are a young age. I don’t know if that played a part in him getting side-tracked, but I am so glad he found himself. Whatever happened to him at that convention, I thank God for it.”
Waiting game
Damian Baker still had to put the change he went through off the field into play on the field.
Baker didn’t waste any time, rushing for 1,403 yards in the regular season and being named the SAC Offensive Player of the Year. He averaged 7.16 yards per carry to rank ninth in the nation. He also was 11th in Division II with 18 rushing touchdowns.
On Thursday, Baker added another honor when he was named a first-team All-American by the American Football Coaches Association.
Now Baker has to sit back and wait until Jan. 8, 2016, when the Harlon Hill Trophy winner will be honored at a luncheon on the University of North Alabama campus in Florence, Alabama.
A humbler and calmer Baker still finds it difficult to believe he has navigated the ups and downs in his life and that he is one of eight finalists for Division II’s most prestigious honor.
Baker feels his journey has made him a better man and a better father. He credits his mother for being strong and for keeping him on the right path. He appreciates the coaches at Carson-Newman for believing in him and for pushing him to realize the potential he didn’t know how to unleash. He thanks his brother for motivating him and reminding him that everyone doesn’t have the opportunities he has been blessed to have.
Hibbett isn’t surprised Baker feels that way because he knows the changes he made to put himself in position to be honored for his exploits on the field. More importantly, Hibbett knows Baker appreciates how he has grown as a man.
“He grew as a person. He grew as a leader,” Hibbett said.
“When he got kicked off the team, something clicked for him. He looked at it and told himself he could be done right now and grow, and that is what he has done. He hasn’t looked back since…what he has learned off the field will turn him into a great man and a great father as he continues down the road.”
Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @ctsportseditor
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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