In life after baseball, he's 'Music Bob'

Apr. 23—A tip jar sitting beside Bob Warn and his guitar has a backstory.

Lots of barroom and coffeehouse singers perch a jar on stool nearby so listeners can drop in a few bucks for playing requests. It's a musician's perk, a little extra cash. Warn's tip jar has a unique message.

"Reach Services — For Vets, Disabled Vets, Others In Need." Whenever Warn performs, he donates his gig proceeds to veterans charities, like Reach Services — a group that provides housing, food and support for homeless and needy vets. Those opportunities to help veterans are numerous — Warn performs two or three times a week in pubs, pizzerias, restaurants, festivals, nursing homes, weddings, funerals and assorted community functions.

He's a veteran, too. The 75-year-old retired college baseball coach served stateside in the U.S. Army from 1968 to '70, during the Vietnam War. For reasons he's still not sure of, Warn's orders to be deployed in Vietnam got changed. The rest of his outfit went off to war. Many of them didn't survive.

"I would've been on those choppers," Warn recalled in the den of his West Terre Haute home.

Instead, the chaplain at Fort Polk in Louisiana made Warn his assistant. His duty was to play guitar and sing to congregations of soldiers attending daily mass services.

"I ended up going to eight masses a day, when I hadn't gone to eight masses in a year," he recalled. His religious faith and musical skills sharpened. And he was able to go home after his Army stint ended.

Warn believes the chaplain influenced the change in his orders. "I think, to this day, I'm alive because of him."

His tip jar sign reflects Warn's ongoing gratitude and appreciation of his fellow soldiers.

It's a side of Warn that Wabash Valley sports fans may not know, just like his musical talents. Most remember him as "Baseball Bob," who coached at Indiana State University for 31 seasons from 1976 to 2006, guiding the Sycamores to six Missouri Valley Conference titles, seven NCAA Tournament berths and a College World Series appearance. His legacy as a local baseball icon was further cemented when ISU named its ballpark Bob Warn Field.

Since his retirement, though, Warn's has fully rekindled a passion for music making he discovered as a 4-year-old.

His family lived on the floor above the bar his parents operated in Baraboo, Wisconsin. The bar's jukebox blared beneath little Bob's bedroom.

"I went to sleep right over it," Warn recalled. "And whether I liked it or not, I memorized all those songs." He rattles off the list — Don Gibson's "Oh, Lonesome Me," The Chordettes' "Mr. Sandman," Doris Day's "Sentimental Journey," The Platters' "Harbor Lights" and others.

Warn's parents bought the family an accordion, and Bob learned to play it at age 10, after his sister turned down lessons. As the '60s arrived, Warn was playing guitar, too.

Music followed him into the military. Warn remembers hearing Glen Campbell's "Galveston" as he stood in line to get his Army fatigues. He bought a 12-string Gibson guitar in 1968, the year Warn entered the service. He played it over and over in those daily masses at Fort Polk, and still plays that 12-string today, sometimes at gigs around the Wabash Valley, along with a six-string Martin and an accordion.

"I love to play music and always have," Warn said, "but the big thing is, it's amazing how many people will come up and put money in that jar."

As he spoke, Warn was surrounded by mementos of his family adventures, coaching career and sports connections. He and his wife, Bonnie, just celebrated their 50th anniversary. They have three adult sons — Barry in Montana, Brad in the Geist area north of Indianapolis, and Brian in Carmel — and eight grandchildren. Warn also has hundreds of former players from his three coaching seasons at Iowa Western and 31 more at ISU in Terre Haute, including 17 players who reached the major leagues. He doesn't take his station in life for granted.

"I've always been the luckiest person in the world — I married up, I worked up, and the people in the military took care of me," Warn said.

'Groupies' home by 8

Coaching and family life paused Warn's musical pursuits, except for annual Christmas Eve performances at the St. Mary of the Woods Village Church. Some of his Sycamore players knew their coach sang, strummed a guitar and squeezed an accordion. Occasionally, he performed at team gatherings.

"There would be guys who'd say, 'Play some songs,'" Warn remembered, laughing. "And, there were other ones who'd say, 'Put that thing away. We've had enough.'"

After retiring, a former player's family that owned an Irish pub in Carmel invited Warn to perform there. ISU alums showed up in the crowd. The pub owners were pleased and told him, "You can play here anytime you want."

He's played that pub since then, but stays closer to the Wabash Valley these days. Warn has steady gigs, like every third Thursday of the month at Twiggy's One Headlight Pub on East Wabash Avenue. Those shows don't run deep into the night.

"My Music groupies have to go home and go to bed after 8 o'clock," he quipped.

Twiggy's regulars know Warn well, and he "brings in a great crowd," said Carmen Pearson, the pub manager. "He's such a nice guy. He's friendly. Everybody likes to talk to him. And, he plays the accordion."

That harmonious keyboard instrument rang out at Twiggy's on March 31, when Warn played a delayed St. Patrick's Day-themed gig. He regaled them with standards like "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling" and "Little Irish Girl," spiced with pop tunes like "Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" by Ireland's U2.

On most Twiggy's outings, his must-play list includes the "Star Spangled Banner," "God Bless America" and "God Bless the USA" for a patriotic twist. Another crowd-pleaser is Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline." "They will all yell it out," Warn said.

Of course, Warn also plays an accordion version of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game."

Back after pandemic pause

Nursing home residents enjoy his music, too. He plays the Cobblestone Senior Living facility's pub on the first Fridays of every month.

"He's built a friendship with [residents] through the years," said Tiffany Thillippe, Cobblestone's activity director. Warn recently resumed his shows at Cobblestone, after a year and a half pause under COVID-19 precautions.

"We really missed him during the pandemic," Thillippe said, "but we're happy to have him back. [The residents] didn't forget him, those that have been out here a long time."

Warn's repertoire includes an incredible 6,000-plus songs, many captured on chord charts packed into a binder. He has to be ready for requests.

"Some nights, it's all Garth Brooks. Other times, they'll say, 'You haven't played any Eagles,'" he said. "I've really got to work hard; I can't bank on anything I did a week ago."

Thirteen of the songs inside that Gutenberg-size binder were written by Warn, including "My Brother's Coming Home." He wrote it while in the Army at Fort Polk. Warn had just finished a routine task of lining the base's softball fields, when a fellow soldier drove up in a Jeep. The friend held a letter with good news — the guy's brother was been shipped back to the States from Vietnam. Inspired, Warn penned the song with verses about "no more letters postage-free" and "no more stagnant water."

Decades later, Warn strummed through the song by memory, pausing a few times to recapture the chords, but singing it confidently. He hopes to record "My Brother's Coming Home" in a studio someday.

Soldiers like his friend get paid tribute through Warn's gigs these days, with that tip jar on a stool beside him. Those opportunities energize the septuagenarian coach-turned-singer.

"My goal is to get people to sing, because I know what it's done for me," Warn said, grinning. "And as Saint [Augustine] said, 'If you sing, you've prayed twice,' and I need all the prayers I can get."

Mark Bennett can be reached at 812-231-4377 or mark.bennett@tribstar.com.