Memories of Babe Baptist, class of 1951
My first encounter with Coach Stanley was my freshman year in high school, 1943-1944. Shelbyville High School and Taylorville High School were in the same conference. Hence, we played Taylorville twice. (I can’t find my high school and college year books so I don’t know the scores.) In 1943, Taylorville, with a record of 45-0, was the first team in Illinois to go undefeated and win the State Basketball Tournament. In 1945, Mr. Stanley was hired by the President of Beloit College, Dr. Carey Cronies, as athletic director and basketball coach.
My second encounter with Mr. Stanley was the spring after my senior year in high school. The owner of the theater in Shelbyville and Taylorville had me over at his office in Taylorville to meet Mr. Stanley. Since I had been the conference leading scorer, Mr. Stanley invited me to visit Beloit College, which I did. I liked the experience and that was the reason I decided to go to Beloit College.
In 1946-1947, Mr. Stanley had recruited three players of the State Championship Team. Johnny Orr, Don Jansen and Francis Stahr. Stahr has been the manager of the Championship Team as the state only allowed 10 players. In 1947-1948, he also recruited David Jones and Ron Bontemps. All of these men were in the service after a semester in college and/or the army.
Since I cannot find my yearbook, I contacted Fred Burwell, Beloit College archivist, and included is the information he sent me. If I can be of any further assistance, please call. I am sorry for the delay, but I thought the yearbook was here in Indianapolis where I am spending two weeks with family.
After reading my report, I thought of some other things you might be interested in.
The only correspondence I received from Beloit was a card indicating the date that I should report. So, when I went to Beloit that Sunday, I went to Coach Stanley’s house. His two-story home was ½ block from the entrance to the Beloit campus. Coach Stanley informed me that all the rooms in the dorms were filled and the college has asked the faculty to make rooms in their homes available. Coach Stanley had one bed still available in a double bedroom, so that is where I lived my freshman year.
My father, a rural mail carrier, had some health problems as he had been gassed the last day of WW1. He died my junior year in high school. My mother worked as an aide in the hospital. I worked after school, except during basketball season, and on Saturdays at a dry-cleaning store. So, money was a problem. Because of my grades, I received a scholarship my freshman year. At the end of my freshman year, Coach Stanley notified me of a family in Beloit, which owned the Garden Machine Company in South Beloit, a flat service grinding machine company. Their home was the large house at the northeast corner when you come up from Strong Stadium. They wanted someone to live with them in the extra bedroom on the third floor. The job consisted of taking care of the lawn, flower garden and driving their mother to the grocery store, hair appointment and to see friends. I also had to take care of the furnace in the winter. My second year they put in a gas furnace. I also mopped the kitchen floor once a week. I ended up living with them for three years, my room and board. They became a second family. They would wait dinner during the basketball season until I returned from practice. So, I missed out living in a dorm or frat house.
George Robert (Babe) Baptist , Beloit College Athletic Hall of Honor
- Class: 1951
- Induction: 1976
- Sport(s): Track and Field, Men's Basketball
“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
