Former Baxter Springs coach Don Karnes joins KABC Hall of fame

Jan. 16—Don Karnes' list of honors received while coaching high school baseball in Baxter Spring, Kansas, is long.

There are five state championships.

The Lions were state runner-up four times and sub-state or regional champions 18 times.

"At one time we had a winning streak of 28 games ... another time, 27," said Karnes, who coached from 1981-2005.

Karnes was named a Regional Coach of the Year in 1997 by the American Baseball Coaches Association; he was Kansas Coach of the Year four times; and he also coached the East/West Kansas All Star Game four times.

To that list of honors, there's now another — one with deep meaning because it was awarded by fellow coaches.

Karnes was inducted into the 2023 Hall of Fame class of the Kansas Association of Baseball Coaches last week during a ceremony in Manhattan.

"I heard about it three months ago. They contacted me and told me it was going to happen," Karnes, now 80, said after returning from the Hall of Fame ceremony. "It is kind of like the icing on the cake. You coach all of those years and you don't really think about the Hall of Fame."

In his 25 years, Karnes coached the Lions 537 games, winning 434 and losing only 103. Baxter Springs won state championships in 1985, 1991, 1992, 2002 and 2003.

More than 40 of the players he coached advanced to play baseball at the college level, and three made it to the professional level. Some of his former players also went on to coach. Karnes praised all of those players and assistant coaches for his success.

One of those players is Phil Cook, now the superintendent of Carl Junction High School, and, with the return of practice next month, the baseball coach.

Cook played for Karnes from 1984-87, including a state championship. Cook went on to play ball for Allen County Community College and then transferred to Pittsburg State University. He was a team captain at PSU for two years. After graduation, Cook taught social studies and coached baseball at Fairland, Oklahoma, for five years before coming to Carl Junction in 1997, where he coached for several more years. He stepped away from coaching to focus on his duties in administration.

"No. 1, practice mattered," said Cook, recalling Karnes' philosophy. "We practiced every day. ... repetition ... We did it over and over. ... We did stuff so much we just knew we were doing it right."

He said Karnes also knew how to motivate young players, "getting them to believe. .... I think he believed more in us that we did in ourselves."

For Karnes, another big honor came in 2015, more than a decade after he retired, when Baxter Springs named the baseball and softball complex in his honor. It also was deeded to the school district.

"My wife (Betty) and I donated 12 acres of land and just started raising money and tried to add something each year," Karnes said.

Karnes started a nonprofit organization in 1999 and worked to create the complex while keeping it debt-free. They held fundraisers and sought donations to make it happen, everything from baseball tournaments to selling chances on baseball gloves.

Cook said he remembers the advice Karnes game him as a player — about how throw a ball — and also as a coach when he started at Fairland:

"One thing he said to me when I was coaching at Fairland: If you don't tell the kids at the start of the season they have a chance to win a state championship, you're selling them short. I believe that, too, and I got it from him."

"I'm a lucky guy because I played for him," Cook said of Karnes.