“You have
to try to be a winner … not just in sports … or you’ll never succeed.”
Mike W. Baker, 72,
Decatur was best known as the coach. He
coached baseball for more than 50 years and also coached basketball at St.
Joseph Catholic School. Mike prepared hundreds of young boys to become
hardworking, capable, and community minded young men. He was a volunteer firefighter for ten years,
an avid outdoorsman, enjoying hunting, fishing, trapping and was also a fur
buyer.
Mike was a parishioner of St. Mary of the Assumption Catholic
Church and a member of the Knights of Columbus Council 864. Mike was co-owner
and president of Baker & Sons Plumbing.
Mike and Mary had four
children. Shelly, Gary, Doug, and Randy,
13 grandchildren and nine great grandchildren. Because of Mike’s involvement in sports, the successful scholarship
candidate will have experience in sports primarily baseball and/or wrestling.