Hall of Honor
“Babe” Baptist was an outstanding basketball player and trackman who joins his two Beloit coaches—Dolph Stanley and Herb Hodges—and three former teammates in the Hall of Honor. A member of three unbeaten Midwest Conference basketball champions, of the team that took third in the 1949 NAIA tourney and of the club that played in the 1951 National Invitation Tournament, he was named all-conference and United Press all-American honorable mention in his senior year, when sports writers also selected him as the third top performer in the Chicago Stadium. Baptist was undefeated in 2-mile track competition, winning four conference titles-the last of which was especially memorable because he did not go out for track that season and entered the league meet only at Coach Hodges’ request that day. He also ran on several championship relay teams, including those which won at Beloit, Drake and Purdue Relays. Athletic director at the Niles North High School in Skokie, Ill., Baptist has devoted nearly a quarter of a century to secondary education as a mathematics teacher, administrator and coach of five different sports.
