At Grayslake North, contact drills suit Baker

Skilled at the art of stepping up, Sam Baker, coincidentally, lives in a basement.

Granted, the residence is only temporary. Sometime soon, Baker plans to move his wife and young son out of his in-laws' basement in Cary and find a home of their own.

For now, you can find Baker at Grayslake North. Considering he stepped up his game during the interview process to land the Knights' highly coveted head-coaching position, his new place might feel like a penthouse.

Ascending seems simple enough. One of the best ways to network is to reach out to people. Make phone calls. Send emails. Shoot text messages. Try to arrange time to talk, to grab a cup of coffee, a quick bite to eat. Make conversation. Listen. Take notes. Listen some more.

Baker, bright and extroverted, did all of that. It helps explain how a 29-year-old guy who's lived his entire life in Minnesota landed a job out of state.

Stepping up requires taking the right steps on one's journey.

"Sam is, flat-out, a great guy," Wauconda football coach Dave Mills said. "I think Grayslake North is going to benefit from it."

Hired by Grayslake North in late April to take over a program that's made the state playoffs five years in a row, Baker has lived in Illinois less than three months. On his final day at Waconia High in Minnesota in early June, he drove down to his in-laws' home. Yet, Mills has known him for a while.

Their friendship started with one of Baker's typical emails that he would send to fellow football coaches.

"Hi, I'm Sam Baker. I'm the head coach at Waconia High School in Minnesota. We do this on offense. I see you do this. Are you willing to meet and chat?"

Baker would watch game film on Huddle and do his research. He would reach out to random coaches, seeking advice, knowledge, feedback, anything that might help him grow as a football coach.

Baker's mother-in-law was once the secretary for former Cary-Grove athletic director/head football coach Bruce Kay. When Baker was in town, he would hook up with Kay and pick his brain about football. Under Kay, the Trojans were a perennial playoff team that ran the triple option.

Baker runs a spread offense.

"When I first started dating my wife and we would be down here, he and I would talk all the time," said Baker, who met his wife, Kate, when the two were students at Winona State University in Minnesota. "We would just talk football. Because I'm not a triple-option guy, he and I didn't always see eye to eye, but we had good thoughts. He and I still have breakfast once a month and chat on the phone."

On his visits here, Baker often would wear Waconia's colors of purple and gold. People assumed the "W' stood for Wauconda, which has the same colors. That led to him emailing Mills.

"The logos are very similar," Baker said of Wauconda and Waconia. "I looked up (Mills). I said, 'I see you run pistol. So do we. Do you mind chatting?' "

That led to a cup of coffee the next time Baker was in town.

"We've been good friends ever since," Baker said.

Baker and Mills attended the IHSA Class 5A and 6A state title games in Peoria together last fall. Mills even wrote a letter of recommendation for Baker when Baker applied for the Grayslake North job after Steve Wood, the Knights' only head coach in their young history, stepped down.

"I asked him if he was OK with doing that," Baker said of Mills. "He goes, 'I want to see good coaches in the conference.' "

Baker called Wood to get background on the Knights. Several months before that phone call, Baker cold-emailed Libertyville head coach Mike Jones. The two went to the Cary-Grove vs. Grayslake North playoff game last year. It was through Jones that Baker learned of the Grayslake North opening.

Now Baker is here. Along with Jordan Eder (Lakes) and Chris Robinson (Grant), he is one of three new head coaches in the Northern Lake County Conference.

"It's going to be some fun," Mills said. "We're going to be as competitive as heck with each other (in the NLCC), but all of the coaches are a bunch of good guys. They're all doing things the right way. They're all trying to grow their student-athlete. It's a great conference from that (perspective), and Sam's just one more new guy that's going to fit in great because that's who he is."

The good conversations about football and life will continue.

jaguilar@dailyherald.com

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