FIRE & SPIRE, Part II: Baker turned back on NFL to make spiritual mark

(Note: This is the second of a two-part feature.)

Following an All-Pro NFL career — which lasted just three years (1959-61) with the San Francisco 49ers of dispensing pain and battered ribs to those receivers he shadowed — Bartlesville College High graduate David Baker filled his two-year military obligation.

The NFL was ready to give him a fistful of dollars when he finished up. He was still just 27 years old and one of the premier past intercepters in league history. But, Baker felt a spiritual calling to help Bethany Christian College (later Southern Nazarene University) start its intercollegiate sports program.

So, he turned his back on the pro football big bucks in favor of trying to do what he believed the Big Guy wanted him to accomplish.

He worked from 1964 to 1974 at the college — and then moved into private enterprise, where he remained the rest of his life until his rugged death — from a terminal condition — in 2002 at age 65.

Baker remained all his life an energetic dynamo with an “I can” attitude. In addition to his work at the college and other career pursuits, he plunged into efforts to help young people — such as a group bike trip from Houston to Canada and on another mission trip from Miami, Fla., to Washington DC.

His wife helped with the day-to-day logistics of those unforgettable journeys.

Perhaps few people in Bartlesville knew Baker as intimately as his lifetime friend George Galanis, who is now passed away.

In 2002, Galanis recalled meeting Baker when they played high school tennis together in 1951-52 — Baker as a freshman and Galanis as a senior.

More:60 years before A.J. Parker, David Baker put Bartlesville on the NFL map

“He was always a good athlete and a good kid,” Galanis said. “He was a church-going boy. And, he was good at just about any sport.”

But, Galanis saw Baker get upset once.

It happened at a tennis match when a Tahlequah player made fun of the tennis jackets that Baker’s mother had given the team.

“His mother had save money and bought us the jackets,” Galanis said.

Many decades later, Baker thanked Galanis and his fellow senior David Norville for accepting him when he was just a freshman.

“I had never realized that,” Galanis said.

Baker was both a God-fearing individual and totally resourceful.

“He was a real hustler who managed to get anything he went after and he could handle any situation,” Galanis said.

But, emphysema proved to be an unbeatable foe.

“He thought he could conquer it through sheer will,” Combs said. “He was so very disciplined and so mentally strong.”

But, as Sir Thomas More observed: “Death comes for us all. Yes, even for kings he comes.”

Several of Combs memories in 2002 proved to be an ad hoc epithet for Baker.

Combs recalled how Baker gave his father a cherished ring he had received from the 49ers.

He recalled the love and sturdiness with which Baker raised his children.

He recalled how “David was more determined than anybody I’ve met.”

One can’t talk about Baker’s legacy in Bartlesville without mentioning his Col-Hi teammate Bobby Joe Green.

Green and Baker both were seniors on that 1954 team and their destiny led to the NFL.

Green was initially slated to play at Oklahoma but switched to Florida.

Pittsburgh drafted him in 1959 as a punter. He played the bulk of his pro career with the Chicago Bears and earned an All-Pro spot in 1970.

Another Col-Hi athletic icon of the 1950s, Dee Ketchum, recalled how Green would punt the ball in practice out into the parking lot.

Green and Baker also were twin dynamos for the ‘Cats during the basketball season.

The Bartlesville newspaper dubbed them as the “20-Point Twins.” They would both score 20 points in five games. In a 85-52 disposal of Okmulgee, both went past 30 points — Baker with 33, Green with 32 — to set a team record.

Nearly 2,000 Col-Hi fans made the journey to Tulsa for a basketball game between Green, Baker & Co. battle the Webster Warriors. Col-High (8-1) was trying to keep pace with Sand Springs (8-1) for the top spot in the Oklahoma Six Conference.

Green scored 24 in the 54-49 win.

The Wildcats eventually advanced to the state tourney — and earned a spot in the Class AA final against Norman.

Earlier in the season, Green produced one of most incredible scoring outputs in school history — 50 points in a 73-60 win against Tulsa Central. It appeared late as if Baker would be stuck at 46 points when coach “Father” Bailey Ricketts decided to take the air out of the ball.

But the crown roaring for Green to get to 50, he scored on a driving lay-up in the half-court offense and finished up with 50 on a fast break, off a steal and pass by Rodney Ricketts.

Even with his incredible athleticism, Green found his niche in pro ball as a punter for 14 years, a dozen of them with the Chicago Bears.

Green would average 42.6 yards per punt for his career, including a 75-yarder.

He coached kickers for seasons at Florida.

Like Baker, Green’s destiny on this globe ended too soon.

He died in 1993, at age 57, of a heart attack, leaving behind his wife and their two children.

What an incredible part of Bartlesville sports history — two future NFL stars in the same high school class.

It would be another 52 years before another Bartlesville high school product — defensive lineman/linebacker Markell Carter — would be drafted in the NFL. The New England players selected Carter in the sixth round in 2011.

A combination of bad luck and a surprise decision by New England to let him go a few weeks before the 2012 training camp after the team had signed him a few months earlier to a new contract hampered Carter’s effort of playing in the NFL — although he had been named the Patriots Practice Player of the Year for 2011.

Carter played pro football in 2014 with the Colorado Ice (Indoor Football League) and make a strong mark.

Next on the NFL radar from Bartlesville has been A.J. Parker, who excelled in college at Kansas State and currently is in his second training camp with the Detroit Lions.

Parker earned a roster spot last year with the Lions and started seven games (while appearing in 13) as a defensive back.

Even though undrafted, Parker displayed that same dogged determination of Baker — and a bit of luck in being at right place at the right time — to find a way to get a seat at the table.

Parker is hopefully on the verge of a noteworthy NFL career and a successful and happy life.

He’s put Bartlesville back on the NFL map and revived memories of Bartlesville’s limited — but shining — pro football connections and tradition started by Baker and Green.

This article originally appeared on Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise: David Baker made physical impact on NFL, gentle impact after