‘He just fits.’ SC State Hall of Famer Shawn Baker takes Hough High football job
On Tuesday morning, moments after he’d been introduced as the fourth head football coach at Hough High School, Shawn Baker grabbed a microphone and delivered a message to his new players, sitting in front of him at the school’s auditorium.
Baker’s voice was raspy, already succumbing to 12 years of coaching football and yelling a lot. But his passion immediately came through when he spoke to his team.
“From this day forward,” he said, “we’re a family. Y’all can’t get rid of me until God calls you home. I’m going to ride with you and I will have your back.”
Baker, 37, will start in his new job in three weeks. He’ll also teach in the physical education department.
“Coach Baker is a great football coach,” second-year Hough athletic director Lori DeMarcus said. “More importantly, he’s a great man and he’s not only going to be good for our football program but for our school.”
Baker, who has served as coach at Cox Mill High School in Cabarrus County since January 2021, is a former Hough offensive coordinator. The Waddell High School graduate spent five years as a Hough assistant before leaving to coach in Concord. At Hough, Baker replaces Matt Jenkins, who resigned last month.
Jenkins stepped down to spend more time with family, he said. Jenkins remains at the school as a teacher and coaches girls’ golf and softball. He was 63-15 as head football coach at Hough and 99-46 in 13 seasons as a head football coach. Jenkins coached football, in college and high school, for 31 years.
A history-making college star
Baker played in high school for legendary coach Bennie McMurray, who spent much of his career in South Carolina. McMurray won multiple state championships in several sports. McMurray helped define Baker’s love of football — and sparked his desire to coach one day.
“(McMurray) helped me so much in my childhood, going through things at home,” Baker told The Observer in a 2021 interview. “He was always a coach that I could look up to and talk to. And I always wanted to be one of those coaches, you know. To me, it’s bigger than football. It’s the relationships you build that can last a lifetime.”
After he graduated from Waddell 20 years ago, Baker became a star at S.C. State, eventually earning induction into the school’s Hall of Fame and he was in the Cleveland Browns’ training camp before an injury ended his career.
When he left S.C. State, Baker was the school’s No. 2 all-time leading rusher with 3,695 yards and 33 touchdowns, which ranked fifth in Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference history. He was the 2006 conference player of the year.
After college and his brief stint in the NFL, Baker was an assistant at Myers Park in 2007. Then he went to graduate school at Grambling State. After he got his master’s degree in physical education, Baker came home to coach and teach at Waddell. When Waddell closed in 2011, he took a job at Johnson C. Smith as a running backs coach and helped the Golden Bulls win the Pioneer Bowl that year.
Baker later went back to S.C. State for three years as assistant athletic director in charge of game operations and academics. After that, he returned to Charlotte and worked as an assistant at Hough for five years before going to Cox Mill in January of 2021.
Expectations different?
At Cox Mill, Baker’s first two teams were a combined 8-10, with two losing seasons. His third, last fall, finished 8-4 and won the school’s first playoff game in eight years.
Hough, however, has been in the national rankings for the past five years and has played in three of the past six regional championship games in the state’s largest classification.
At Cox Mill, the expectations may have been to get to the playoffs. At Hough, the expectation is to win them. And Baker said he has a plan to get Hough past the semifinal round.
“We’ve just got to bring some more toughness,” he said. “Even when I was here before, we had toughness on defense and then we’d have a little bit on offense, and in the playoffs, we’d play good defensively and play bad offensively or vice versa. I just want to bring some accountability and toughness.
“I think that’s the key to everything.”
It’s all about family
On Tuesday morning, Baker’s family was seated in the front row — wife Tracie and his two children: 6-year-old DJ and 2-year-old Brooke. He told the players that Tracie will be their biggest fan as she filmed her husband’s introduction with her iPhone.
On his Twitter account, in the description, Baker has written: “My family is my world.”
And now, he said, Hough is his family, too.
“I’m excited, man,” he said. “This place is like home to me. When I came back from South Carolina, this was the first place I came back to coach, and being able to come back and coach here again, there’s nothing else you can ask for.”
Baker said there aren’t any players around from when he last coached at Hough, but there were plenty of teachers and staff offering him congratulations.
“I’ve got to get in here and learn the kids,” he said, “and see what we can do. But I’m pretty sure we can make something happen.”
DeMarcus — the Hough AD who has had three kids graduate from the school — is pretty confident, too.
“It’s that and the quality of person he is,” she said. “We have a thing here called ‘The Hough Way.’ It’s integrity, hard work and service, and those are three qualities that he embodies as well. He just fits what we’re trying to do at Hough High School.”
PHOTOS: Shawn Baker named head football coach at Hough High
This story was originally published January 3, 2023 at 8:47 AM.
