Monday, June 10, 2013

KENNEDY HIGH SCHOOL: Softball field dedicated to teacher/coach Mike Baum, who retired after 40 years with district

NOTE: Freelance writer Dave Gorgon recently wrote an outstanding feature story on former Taylor teacher and coach Mike Baum. On May 21, Mike Baum Softball Field was dedicated for the man who taught for 40 years in the Taylor School District. A copy of the story and photo follow. To view the story in The News-Herald Newspapers, just click here.



The softball field at Kennedy High School has been named for one of the school’s longtime varsity coaches.

The Mike Baum Softball Field was dedicated May 21 during a ceremony that featured dozens of Baum’s former players, fellow coaches, former co-workers from the Taylor School District, friends and family.

The softball and baseball fields had been named for former Major League baseball pitcher Steve Avery, a Kennedy standout athlete who played for Baum and endorsed renaming the softball field for the veteran coach.

Baum taught 40 years in the Taylor schools, including Kennedy, West, Truman and Hoover junior high schools and Federal and Treadwell elementary schools. He retired last summer.

Baum said he started coaching varsity softball and boys basketball at Kennedy the same year, 1983.

He coached Eagles’ softball teams to 585 victories – which places him among the top 10 for career wins in the state of Michigan. One of his teams was 35-5 in the 1990s. In the next decade, another won the Madonna tournament against some of the best teams in the state.

“It was a nice day,” Baum said. “It was great to see all the girls. I saw some girls who were on my first team. That’s what made it a great day.”

He said the softball players deserve the credit for his success. He said the field named in his honor “means a lot of work by the girls. My name may be on it, but the girls did all the work. They believed what I was selling, they practiced hard and they played tough schedules. It was a culmination of lot of things coming together, but mostly it was the girls doing the work.”

Baum also had 325 career wins in boys basketball at the high school, coaching 24 years at the varsity level and five years at the junior varsity.

He was head coach of the Kennedy junior varsity football team as well, leading the Eagles to three straight 9-0 seasons. He also had coaching stints in junior varsity girls basketball and middle school football and baseball.

A member of the City of Taylor Sports and Recreation Hall of Fame, Baum was a three-time winner of the Mellus/News-Herald newspapers “coach of the year” award. His basketball teams won six league championships and four district titles.

In 1999, the Eagles lost to eventual state champion Ann Arbor Pioneer by one point. Kennedy finished 23-3 that year with all three losses being to state championship teams (including twice to River Rouge) and each loss was by one point.

Baum is the son of the late Edward and Naomi Baum. His father was a teacher, coach and athletic director at Romulus High School.

Baum graduated in 1967 from Taylor Center High School, where he played football, basketball and baseball. He went on to become a four-time letter winner in baseball at Lewis and Clark State College.

In summers, Baum worked for more than 30 years for the Taylor Parks and Recreation Department. He also coached the Taylor fast-pitch travel softball team for more than 15 years. The team was known as one of the best in the Midwest.

Baum also has a reputation for mentoring future head coaches, including John Mackson, who is now the men’s basketball coach at the University of Michigan-Deaborn; Ron Kochan, one of Baum’s best players, who serves as Mackson’s assistant; and son Jeff Baum, who won 75 games as the coach of Lincoln Park High School’s girls’ basketball team and has returned to Kennedy to coach junior varsity boys and soon varsity girls basketball; and former pitcher Samantha Cain, who succeeded Baum as varsity softball coach.

Baum’s wife Patricia Cizewski-Baum was among those in attendance at the festivities, along with his sons, Kennedy graduates Todd (1991), Jason (1992) and Jeff (1994). Baum has three grandchildren: Aaron, Evan and Chase.

“To me, it’s amazing that he stayed at Kennedy for all these years and never ventured off anywhere else,” Jeff Baum said. “That’s very rare nowadays. It’s also unbelievable that all of these athletes he coached as far back as 35 years ago keep in contact with him and they talk regularly. My dad developed relationships with them. That shows he was more than a coach.”

Mike Baum, who still coaches fast-pitch softball in the summer, said he misses coaching high school ball “all the time.”

“The hardest thing I had to do was walk away from high school softball,” he said. “The girls did a great job my last year. They did what they were supposed to do. They worked hard and beat teams. If you coach a long time, you look for teams to work hard and get better. That’s what they did.

“I always enjoyed softball in the spring time. I guess I felt most comfortable with softball. We were in the Mega Red Conference for awhile, which is one of the top softball leagues in the state. Every day, somebody is coming at you.”

Baum said he was “flattered” that Mike Baum Softball Field was named for him.

“It’s a nice honor,” he said. “I’m a Taylor boy and I love Taylor, so it’s all good.”

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