New Hanford Falcon football coach kicks off job with old-fashion dial up

As a new head coach hired to run a Class 4A football program, being hired in the spring already puts you behind the eight-ball for the upcoming season.

But being hired in the midst of a COVID-19 lockdown makes it that much tougher.

Somehow, though, Nick Baker is finding ways to build his program from a distance.

Baker, 29, was announced last week as the new head football coach at Hanford High School, taking over for Brett Jay, who resigned after the 2019 season.

“It’s definitely going to be a process. It’ll take a lot of work, one day at a time,” Baker told the Herald over the phone Monday. “I’m trying to build a staff. And it’s definitely difficult not knowing the kids. So I have to build relationships on the phone.”

The good news for Baker is that most of Jay’s assistant coaches will remain on staff for the 2020 season.

“Brett had done a good job of putting together a coaching staff,” said Hanford athletic director Josh Jelinek.

So first things first, Baker has been calling each of his assistants, just having conversations — Baker getting to know them, and they getting to know Baker.

“It’s about building relationships,” Baker said. “And we don’t have to talk football.”

Making the hire

Jelinek is ecstatic with this hire.

“I’m pretty excited about this,” Jelinek said. “He’s only been teaching for five years. But he’s got a lot of energy. His football IQ is off the charts.”

Jelinek visited with Baker a lot during the interview process.

“When we interviewed him, we asked a lot of questions,” said the athletic director, who was a teacher and offensive coordinator at Richland High himself just two seasons ago. “I put together many of the questions. Nick was amazing with his answers. He did all of the right things throughout the process.”

Jelinek said Baker came across as selfless.

“He said he’d love to call the plays, but if he had guys on both sides of the ball who could call plays, he’d trust them,” Jelinek said. “You don’t typically see that in a head coach.”

Baker graduated from Lake Stevens High School in 2009. He was an outstanding left-handed quarterback there, and moved on to Montana Tech, where he was QB there for four seasons.

Baker graduated with a major in mathematics, and then he went to the University of Idaho, where he got his master’s in math.

“I spent two years away from football,” Baker said. “And I missed being a part of a team.”

Private school teacher

He found a teaching job at O’Dea High School in Seattle, where he’s been teaching AP calculus and pre-calculus for the past four years.

He’s also the dean of one of the school’s houses.

“Think of O’Dea as like a Hogwarts,” said Baker, referring to the Harry Potter books. “There are four houses, and there are four deans. I’m a dean, the head of one house, and I’m in charge of 100 guys.”

Baker has also been the part of legendary head coach Monte Kohler’s football staff these past four years.

And in the four years he was there, Baker helped O’Dea get to the 3A state championship game each season.

The Irish won the state title in 2017, and finished second in the other three seasons — including in 2016, when they lost 14-7 to Kamiakin in the championship game.

“I coached the quarterbacks, the varsity linebackers, and was the junior varsity head coach,” Baker said. “So I coached both sides of the ball.”

He admits, as a former quarterback himself, “In my heart, I love quarterbacks. But defense wins championships.”

In these past few seasons, Jay’s Falcon teams have been involved in some high-scoring shootouts – 55-41, 70-42, 56-35 and 42-35, for example.

Obviously, Baker will need to evaluate his talent, but he’s not set on any one way.

“So in certain games, if you can control the ball on offense, and the defense can get some stops, you can win the game,” he said. “Some games you need a high-powered offense. Some games, you might only need 14 points to win the game. Every game is different.”

Baker has been watching film, and he knows what he has in quarterback Easton Wise-Hyde — who led the Mid-Columbia Conference in passing last season with 2,692 yards, 29 TD passes and just 8 interceptions — coming back.

“And there are a lot of skill guys who can go get the ball,” he said.

But first things first.

Coaching and teaching

“I’m working on the coaches first,” Baker said. “I want our coaches and me to build a relationship, and get on board with what we need to do.”

He’ll also finish the school year at O’Dea first.

“I’m a teacher first,” he said.

As a private school, O’Dea provides computers to each student.

“We’re running full classes right now from 8-2, Monday through Friday,” said Baker, who does have a general timeline. “In April, I’ll work with the coaches. Around May 1st, I’ll start pushing out the playbook, and during May I’ll set up meetings with the kids. Hopefully by June, we’ve turned the corner and can have spring ball.”

He’ll be ready.

“I see a lot of similarities between math and football,” he said. “Both are about solving puzzles. You just have to take it one step at a time.”

For now, it’s one phone call at a time, one day at a time.

All football coaches behind schedule

It’s not just Baker who will be behind schedule.

Richland head coach Mike Neidhold, told the Herald on Monday, that he and his staff would normally be busy at this time of year.

I asked him what they’d be doing.

“Almost all of our football players play other sports,” Neidhold said. “Our coaches would be at track meets, tennis matches, baseball games, just showing our players that we care about them.”

Neidhold said the school’s weight room would normally be open every day after school for those players who weren’t involved in a spring sport.

“I would also be busy checking on player eligibility,” Neidhold said. “I’d be checking with Boise State University around this time, regarding our summer football camp there.”

As a staff, Richland coaches would normally be meeting once a week at this time.

“It would be about logistics, about what went right last season, about what went wrong last season,” he said. “We’d be drawing up practice plans for spring football. Day 1, what we’re looking at. Spring time is a lot of teaching time.”

April is also a time if a coach picked something up new over the winter that the staff may want to try, such as a new play.

“If it doesn’t work, we don’t use it. That’s usually a code word for my staff to say ‘Mike’s got another bad idea,’” Neidhold said with a chuckle. “Then I’ll just go sit in a corner.”