Positively unflinching

Within Tom Baldwin’s home, construction is taking place in the kitchen. The stove and refrigerator are not at their original spots. The cupboards are empty. Parts of the walls appear to have been sanded down and replastered. Renovation is happening.

But in the living room, there is a picture hanging on the wall that needs no such rebuilding. The photo is of a young football player wearing his uniform looking like he’s about to tackle the entire opposing team. It’s as if he’s going to jump out of the photo.

If it’s true what’s been said about pictures and the amount of words they can say, this one would have as many as a novel.

In the photo, Baldwin wears No. 22, posing for an award he won as player of the week as a quarterback/defensive back at Santa Ana College in 1954. His eyes are full of life. He’s got a strain about his mouth that shows he’s yearning to play football.

Baldwin has the spirit, and even today he carries it with him. He did so as coach at Santa Ana High, Santa Ana Valley and Costa Mesa. He has that fight deep, deep within him even when dealing with the unknown.

He can’t turn it off. It’s why he continues to teach and coach at Costa Mesa at the age of 76, with no thought of when to retire.

THE UNKNOWN

It happened in April, just before he was about to coach the Costa Mesa boys’ golf team in a match. The pain in Baldwin’s belly was like a medicine ball had crushed him against a wall. The agony was too much.

He called his doctor. After a series of tests, it was believed Baldwin had cancer in his intestines and surgery was needed. The fear was that the cancer was untreatable.

During surgery, doctors searched for the cancer, but couldn’t find it. Instead there was some rare disease.

It’s called mesenteric panniculitis. It’s basically a hard mass that is blocking his intestines. It can’t be removed because it is part of the intestines.

“It’s extremely rare,” Baldwin said. “None of my doctors have ever heard about it before. We don’t know what’s next.”

Baldwin, who had a painful episode with the disease last week, is visiting the doctor today to discuss a plan of action.

Relief actually set in for Baldwin when he realized he did not have cancer. Yet the reality of this disease means that this could very well be his final year as a teacher and coach at Costa Mesa, where he began in 1984. He’s been teaching and coaching for the past 47 years.

But now he’s dealing with a rare disease that’s taking away his energy, yet not doing much to deter his zest for life.

Baldwin remains positive. He remains a fighter, like in that picture.

“You play the cards that are dealt to you,” he said. “If you’re going to get in the game, you don’t know what cards you are going to get. When you get ’em, you play ’em.”

It’s not as if he doesn’t remain active. He continues to coach the girls’ golf team, with the help of his assistant, John Coury.

Baldwin plays from time to time with the team. He says the disease is not life threatening.

“I’m still really tired,” he said. “I get tired quick. I’m not used to that. I’m used to 12-hour days. I can’t do that right now.”

Baldwin continues to teach U.S. history at Costa Mesa, but has taken time off to rest this school year.

THE HERO

Before Baldwin became a coach, before he became a football player, he was sharpening his leadership skills while growing up in Long Beach. And, Baldwin had to grow up quick. His mother died of asthma when he was 6.

After his father remarried two years later, Baldwin became the eldest of three boys (he had two stepbrothers) and eventually a baby girl.

With World War II taking place at this time, 1939, jobs became available. Baldwin’s father and stepmother worked regularly for the Douglass Aircraft company.

Baldwin was left to care for his brothers and baby sister.

They called him the hero of the family. He was usually there to rescue his siblings from harm. And he had to stay strong.

After all, he was the one whose mother died during the Great Depression, when he and his father moved in and out of relatives’ homes until they found their own. He made it through that. Surely, he could be the leader when mom and dad were gone at work. He was only 10, but he learned quickly, as he kept on being the hero through age 17.

He never grew frustrated about being an adult at such a young age.

“I don’t see it as something you think about,” Baldwin said. “It had to be done and you do it. I don’t think you think you’re any different than anyone else, or you’re doing anything different. You’re just doing what needs to be done. It’s here, it’s now and you do it. You don’t think about it. You don’t think it’s something extraordinary.”

It seems as if people have looked to Baldwin to make the call throughout his life. After graduating from Long Beach Jordan, where he never played varsity football, he went into the Army and fought in the Korean War. Fourteen months he spent on the front lines.

Baldwin was a platoon leader.

When he came home, it made sense that he could become a coach. But first he wanted to play the game.

THE COACH

Baldwin has always had a love for football. There were days as a child he would race home from school just so he could check out the newest Collier’s magazine that had the college All-American team in it. He kept a special scrapbook for issues like those, cutting out the photos of his favorite players.

He still loves the game. Saturdays are usually reserved for college football on TV. He’ll watch a high school game when it’s on and when he’s not at church he’ll check out the pros, too.

“I’m a football nut,” he said. “Football has been a huge part of my life ... I love the game of football.”

He even loved it in high school, when he was 5-foot-6, 120 pounds and couldn’t get any varsity playing time.

After returning from the war, he was a man. He was ready to play football and be a starter at Santa Ana College. He then went on to play at Long Beach State.

Football was the only reason he wanted to teach. He knew that was his best opportunity to become a coach.

He learned while working as a graduate assistant with the 49ers and got his start at Santa Ana High in 1958 as an assistant coach. He coached at Santa Ana Valley for six years after that.

Then back to Santa Ana (1965 to 1974), where he was in his prime, coaching the Saints during what many consider the golden age for prep football in Orange County.

He also worked for two years as an assistant coach and executive for the Southern California Sun of the short-lived World Football League.

For Baldwin, his work as coach wasn’t so much about the wins and losses, or even the huge crowds that showed up for the games. It was more about the relationships, he said, the ones developed with the players and his assistants. The relationships carry on today.

When Baldwin was in the hospital for surgery, his former players visited him, some telephoned.

They wanted to be there for him and he wanted them there because they were the ones who kept him positive.

“He’s been someone I’ve always admired and respected,” said Isaac Curtis, the former star NFL receiver who played at Santa Ana from 1966 to ’68. “He’s somebody who has always cared for his players. He just means a lot to me.”

Baldwin meant so much to Curtis that he asked his former high school coach to present him to the crowd at Riverfront Stadium when he was inducted into the Cincinnati Bengals Hall of Fame in the late 1980s.

Curtis, 58, who works in hotel management in Cincinnati, wanted Baldwin to be there because he’s a friend. But also because Baldwin instilled in him that strong love for the game.

“He was just so emotional and so passionate about the game,” Curtis said. “I think that really rubbed off on his players. He was always very positive. He always gave positive reinforcement. I don’t recall anything negative about him. I think everyone bought into it. If you’re around somebody who is that positive, it’s just contagious.”

Even dealing with his disease, Baldwin has done his best to remain positive. With his wife of 53 years, Carol, he attends church at Harbor Trinity in Costa Mesa, where they’ve been praying for their favorite coach.

Coury, another former player of Baldwin’s, has been retired for the past 10 years, but he wanted to help the man who taught him so much about the game, so much about life.

“You won’t find a better person,” Coury said of Baldwin. “He’s just a great guy. Everyone loves him. I never heard anyone say a bad thing about Tom Baldwin. He’s just a super human being.”

Coury and many of Baldwin’s other former players are sensing that this could be Baldwin’s final year of teaching and coaching. A few of the former players are already planning parties to celebrate their coach.

Keith Wyrick, who played for Baldwin in 1971 and ’72 and has been a starter at the Newport Beach Golf Course for the past 20 years, is planning for a pro-am and banquet in Baldwin’s honor at the end of the school year.

Wyrick keeps in touch with Baldwin because he cares for him, but also because that fighting spirit from playing football is needed in most areas of life.

“I asked him advice on a personal matter a few weeks back,” Wyrick said. “He’s one of the few people I trust. He’s been like a second father to me.”

THE TEACHER

As his career winds down, Baldwin is more of a teacher than a coach. For the most part, he’s not mentoring teens who are involved in athletics. Yet he’s still affecting lives with his positive take on life.

All the love he has for the game is nothing compared to the compassion Baldwin has for his students.

As Chuck Deckard, another former player of Baldwin’s said, the Costa Mesa teacher is, “so genuine and helpful to people.”

Deckard was 8 when he first met Baldwin, who was working for Santa Ana parks and recreation at the time. Deckard also coached with Baldwin working as an assistant at Santa Ana Valley and Costa Mesa.

“He’s the most positive person I have ever known in my life,” Deckard said. “He always finds something good even in something bad. I don’t think I ever heard him say anything bad about a person.”

That’s pretty much how Baldwin wants to be remembered in his career, as someone who really cares.

When he returned to school last month, he became very excited. Carol said her husband was like a kid approaching the first day of school.

“I felt like I had to get him a new outfit or something,” she said.

In his class, there were welcome-back cards and well-wishes waiting for him. He pinned the cards on the wall behind his chair near the corner in front of the class.

Another card pinned there is special to him. It’s from another student who’s been positively affected by Baldwin.

It’s a Christmas card, wishing Baldwin happy holidays, but also reminding him what he’s all about.

“You are so great!!” the student wrote. “You are one of the best people I have ever met. You are such a great teacher. I have never met anyone so dedicated and full of energy. You bring joy to my life.”

STEVE VIRGEN may be reached at (714) 966-4616 or by e-mail at [email protected].