Parker Baldwin Hopes the End is Only the Beginning
By Mick McGrane, GoAztecs.com Senior Writer (@MickOnTheMesa)
In his hometown of Siloam Springs, Ark., Parker Baldwin is considered cause for celebration, the only player ever to emerge from Siloam Springs High as a Division I football player.
It is a town of roughly 15,000, one that numbers among its eateries Chickadee's Fresh Fare, a restaurant operated by Baldwin's mother, Stephanie Truitt. In a land of BBQ, chicken fried steak, catfish and corn bread, Chickadee's offers lighter options, fare you might find in, say, San Diego, Calif.
Which is exactly where Truitt found the ideas for her menu, and Parker Baldwin, at long last, found a football future.
Not even celebrities, it seems, travel roads free of ruts.
It was the fall of 2014, and Baldwin, who had done everything for his high school football team, save drop kick a field goal on a fake reverse while masquerading as the Panthers' mascot, was awaiting word on a scholarship offer.
It's not so much that Siloam Springs High doesn't play capable football, it's mostly that college coaches don't routinely place Siloam Springs at the head of the itinerary. Before Parker Baldwin, there was Roger Jackson (Class of 2008), a wide receiver who played for the Washington Valor of the Arena Football League following a collegiate career at Arkansas Tech.
But Baldwin was a different kind of talent. A state champion in the 200 meters, he played linebacker for the Panthers. He played safety, wide receiver, running back and assumed the quarterback duties when Siloam Springs operated out of the Wildcat formation. His accomplishments brought a visit from Arkansas coach Bret Bielema and Memphis coach Justin Fuente, while also peaking the interest of then-UNLV head coach Bobby Hauck. None of the schools, however, was initially willing to tender a scholarship offer.
"It was a roller-coaster ride," Baldwin said. "It wasn't like some recruits who have 50 offers and have the luxury of choosing one. I had a very limited number of offers. And I had told my parents that if I couldn't play Division I football, then I didn't want to play at all, not in the sense that I would've given up on it, because I would've walked on rather than not being able to play Division I. I wanted to play at the highest level, because that's what I thought I was capable of doing."
Ultimately, so did Hauck. With the holidays fast approaching during his senior year at Siloam High, Baldwin received a call from Hauck's brother, Tim, who was serving as UNLV's defensive coordinator. The Rebels were offering Baldwin a scholarship. But only days later, en route to a 2-10 finish that came a year after leading UNLV to its first bowl game since 2000, Bobby Hauck announced he was stepping down following the 2014 season.
In January of 2015, Hauck was hired as the special teams coordinator at San Diego State. For Baldwin, misfortune shifted to golden opportunity.
"I knew I was good enough to get offers and play Division I football, but I was really frustrated," he said. "After I got the call from Coach Hauck's brother, Tim, I was so thankful. It was really a relief. Then, all of the sudden, the whole staff at UNLV is gone. I'm looking around like, 'Now what? Where's my offer now?' So when Coach Hauck was offered to become the special teams coordinator, he called me and said, 'What would you think about playing at San Diego State?' I said, 'Do I have an offer?' He said, 'That's my understanding.'
Baldwin, understandably, sought confirmation. And following one of those awkward moments you spend your entire life attempting to rectify, he found it.
"So I got on an airplane, I land at the airport, and it was one of those flights where you walk across the tarmac into the terminal," he said. "I walk in, and here's this old guy holding my bags. I'm thinking, 'Who is this guy?' So I walk up and introduce myself and he says, 'Hi, I'm Rocky Long.' I'm thinking, 'Oh, man, I didn't even know who the guy was."
"From the moment he picked me up at the airport to the time they took me to my hotel that night, he never said anything about an offer. I called my mom and told her I thought I had an offer, because the head coach had picked me up at the airport and Coach (former Aztecs defensive coordinator Danny) Gonzales was showing me tape of Brian Urlacher (the former Chicago Bears linebacker who was coached by Long at New Mexico) and telling me that these were the kinds of things I could help them with. At one point he sort of stopped and gave me a stare and I told him I'd really like to play here. I asked him if I had an offer and he said, 'Oh, yeah, of course you have an offer.' I didn't know I had an offer throughout the entire visit until they sort of started pressuring me to commit. I didn't even know."
Urlacher was enshrined in pro football's Hall of Fame on Saturday. On Monday, Baldwin, who plays the same position Urlacher did while coached by Long, took part in the first practice of his final season at SDSU. While Urlacher was New Mexico's "Lobo" in Long's trademark 3-3-5 defense, Baldwin is SDSU's "Aztec," a safety-linebacker hybrid that blends size, speed, strength and a lot of ornery. Baldwin arrived at SDSU having been recruited as an "athlete," but soon learned that his chances of ending up on the offensive side of the ball were slimmer than none.
"I don't think it was even a thought," said Baldwin, who has played in more games (41) than any active SDSU player. "They immediately put me at safety. It's complicated, especially the position I play, because it's not like any other position in the nation. I was talking to Coach Long the other day and told him that the first two weeks I was here, I was just winging it. I was just hoping that I was in the right place on the field. If I was, then everything was good, but it's kind of a situation here where as a freshman they just throw you into the fire. They want to see what you can do. Coach (Gonzales) would be saying to me, 'Hey, great play, we could use you out there,' but, truthfully, I didn't have any idea what I was even doing. It was just luck that I was in the right place at the right time.
"When people ask me, I just tell them that I'm a safety who acts like a linebacker when we walk up to the line of scrimmage. We do it all. It's one of those positions that's really unique, because you have to find a guy who is willing to hit and willing to cover at the same time. That's a hard blend to find. You've got to find a guy who's not scared to be down in the box, a guy who can read what the guards are doing and go make a play. Coming out of high school, I'd played some linebacker and I also played safety. But coming from a small high school, I did just about everything."
Two months ago, he did something else that caught people's attention. Despite finishing second on the team with 75 tackles last season, Baldwin viewed his junior year as subpar. Limited by a nagging knee injury over the final five games of the season, he began questioning his commitment and his approach to the team's training regimen. And while he didn't necessarily draw the shades to shut out the world, he announced on Twitter that he was taking a hiatus from social media. It was time for some soul searching, some self-reflection, a time to distance himself from the noise of external distractions.
"At the end of the season, I kind of looked myself in the mirror," he said. "I didn't think that I'd done everything I could in terms of taking care of my body during the offseason. I was disappointed with the effort I'd made in keeping my body healthy (he says he's now 100 percent), and I got this sudden realization that I only have one more year of this, that it's not going to last forever.
"Going into my junior year, I think I found myself thinking that it would be easy for me, that I didn't have to work that hard and that I could go ahead and eat fast food everyday and just go through the motions in practice. I thought I could just show up on game day and play well, and it didn't help that I'd gotten discouraged by injuries I had throughout the season.
"One day I just came to the realization that I'd become engulfed with social media, especially when I'd read things from NFL scouts talking about who they thought were the best (college) safeties. I'd start thinking to myself, 'There's no reason I can't be a top 10 safety in this next class, none of these guys are better than I am.' I'd start worrying about that kind of stuff. I decided that I had to start worrying about what's important to me and what's right in front of me, right now. I can't worry about the NFL or the possibility of being drafted. I need to worry about the day-to-day, the hour-to-hour, second-to-second. Everything is going to work itself out. This is my last real chance to show everyone what I've got at the college level."
For folks in Siloam Springs, Ark., it can't come soon enough.
"A lot of people in town know who I am, and they're all rooting for me," he said. "Whenever we're on TV back there, I know everyone's with me. And that's what I love about going back home. They really love the hometown guy. But I want to keep playing as long as I can. I hope that one day they get to see the hometown guy playing in the NFL."