Baker to lead Sabine
By MITCH LUCAS sports@kilgorenewsherald.com HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL

Photo by Marvin Hillhouse WELCOME, COACH - Jerry Baker (above), who has had playoff success both as a head coach and an assistant, was hired as the new head football coach and athletic director at Sabine High School at a special board meeting on Monday night.

Sabine High School football fans have had very little to cheer about, and Jerry Baker hopes to change that.

Baker has been named the new head football coach and director of athletics at Sabine High, being offered the job and then approved in a special Sabine Independent School District board meeting on Monday night.

Superintendent Stacy Bryce told the News Herald this morning that he was elated with the hire.

"With Jerry, there's so many positives," Bryce said. "We believe this will be great. He's coached with some good ones, including (former Spring Hill coach) Steve Gaddis and (former Daingerfield and current Whitehouse coach) Randy McFarland. He's a good person, and there's such a positive outlook that he has. ...We're excited about our softball program, of course, being in the playoffs tonight, and we believe athletics are going to improve, that things are going to take off from here."

Baker replaces former athletic director and head football coach David Feaster, who was in place at Sabine for just one season. Baker, who has both head coaching and AD experience, comes to Sabine from Lewisville, a Class 5A school.

He was meeting with Bryce this morning, then was to meet several students over the next two days before finishing his assignments at Lewisville. Technically, he will begin his new position at Sabine on Monday.

Baker told the News Herald he is extremely excited about his new job, and looking forward not only to working with students already involved in athletics at Sabine, but also in bringing new children into athletic programs, particularly football.

"Well, we'd like to get as many kids that are excited about football as we can," he said. "We want to encourage kids that are walking the halls to come join us. ...We're going to work them hard, and have high expectations, but we're also going to build them up and show them we love them, and that we all want to succeed."

Baker and his wife Tina will relocate to East Texas once again. They have two daughters, and both are students at the University of Texas.

Coach Baker is a 1976 graduate of Spring Hill High School in Longview, and served the country as a part of the U.S. Navy after graduation. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree from the Uni- versity of Texas in Austin in 1984, as an Education/English major.

His first year as a teacher was spent at Winona High School in 1985, and then he spent five years at Hawkins High School as an assistant baseball and basketball coach, and as the defensive coordinator for the junior varsity football team. He moved on to Mount Pleasant in 1992, and became the head freshmen football coach, as well as coaching the varsity's outside linebackers.

Baker's first head coaching job came in 1995, as head coach at Detroit High, a 1A program. He went 18-11-1 at Detroit over three seasons, serving also as head girls basketball coach and a baseball assistant coach in that time frame.

He coached linebackers and tight ends with McFarland at Daingerfield from 1998-2001, and then coached defensive tackles and ends at Spring Hill, as well as serving as head softball coach, from 2001-05. In his present capacity at Lewisville, he coached outside linebackers in a 3-4 defense, and also coached tackles and tight ends in a spread offense.

Lewisville made it to the second round of the 5A playoffs in 2007, and reached the playoffs with Baker as an assistant in 2006. Of course, he had great coaching success with both Spring Hill and Daingerfield, and also coached Detroit to the playoffs in one of his three years there (1996).

Baker takes over a program that has seen decades without a postseason, but has reason to be optimistic. The bad news is that the football program has won just one game in the last two seasons, and Baker will be the third head coach in three years. Greg Anderson was the Cardinals' coach for two seasons (2005 and 2006), then Feaster last year. The Cardinals, who have had success in basketball, softball and baseball, haven't made the playoffs in football since the 1985 season.

On the other hand, Sabine is moving to Class 2A, as a part of the UIL's realignment, beginning with the 2008-09 school year, and being at the 2A level with programs closer to its size should allow Sabine to be more competitive, not only in football, but in all sports. Before realignment, Sabine was the smallest school in Texas in the 3A classification.