Baker Runs Alone, Usually at the Front

By Tucker Mitchell

Source: The Winston-Salem Journal - Wednesday, October 28, 1981

For all the world outside of Iredell County knows, the town of Union Grove is full of fiddlers and little else.

High school and college track coaches around the state realize there's something more in this tiny community than an annual music festival, however. They've seen Robert Baker run.

Baker, a North Iredell High School senior and a Union Grove native, is one of the premier high school distance runners in the state. He's won the 3,200-meter race at the state meet two years in a row, finished fourth in the mile last year and was third last season in the state cross country meet.

He'll try to better that last performance Friday at the 1981 state cross country meet in Charlotte. It will be just the second state meet for Baker, which considering his talent, is unconscionable, but considering his environment, is to be expected. This was just the second year North Iredell has had a cross country team.

"I'd guess you'd have to say there aren't too many serious runners around here," said Baker last week after pulling away from a sectional cross country field at Hanes Park. "I'll see a few joggers running around down at the elementary school every now and then, you know, just to lose weight. But I'm usually by myself when I run."

Baker is used to that now. He works out by himself during the cross country season and the summer, training under a coaches' eye only during the spring track season. Even then, North Coach Charles Love must count on Baker to push himself. His time is spread too thin to be spent on an athlete who will pick up maximum points without coaching.

Given this relative lack of attention, it is surprising that Baker ever took up running at all. It was in his blood.

"There are a lot of runners in my family it seems," said Baker. "I guess I first got interested watching my cousin, June Lee Tutterow, run."

Tutterow, who held most of the North Iredell distance records until recently, was a next-door neighbor of Baker's. Little Robert would watch him work out and then go to the school to watch him run in the meets.

By the time he reached the eighth grade, Baker had decided he wanted to give running a try, too. As it turned out, he was pretty good. Baker's first time in the mile was 4:55.

"I guess you could just say it was natural talent," said Baker, who has another cousin in Washington D.C. who ran competitively. "I was in fairly good shape from basketball and swimming and some other sports and my whole family is kind of thin. It came pretty easy right from the first."

Others were quick to notice Baker's promise. Love pulled him aside during his freshman year and told him of the possibilities his talents allowed, and college coaches in the state, picking up tips from various sources, began to send mail. Before he had ever won a state title, Baker was a prospect.

"He has that rhythm that tells you he's going to be a successful runner," said N.C. State track coach Tom Jones. "You can tell it just by watching. I picked him to win the two-mile last year just watching him warm up. And I didn't even know who he was then."

Jones knows now, however, and Baker is among several runners high on the national-power Wolfpack's recruiting list. That's despite the fact that his 3,200-meter times (two-mile) aren't impressive on a national scale.

North Carolina runners' numbers seldom are, however. Shorter and generally less intense sessions don't press their talents to the breaking point until well past high school.

This can be a bane or a bonus. Upon reaching college, Tar Heel recruits often aren't as good as their competition from California and Florida, but they may have more room for development.

"You never see any North Carolina kids with two-mile times around nine minutes," said Jones, who prefers to recruit in-state. "They're always up around 9:10 - 9:25. North Carolina athletes, just like any others, compete at the level they have to. If they're aren't any good distance runners around they won't be pushed ad the times won't be as good."

Jones' theorizing is particularly true in Baker's case. His dual and tri-meet record in high school was phenomenal, because he was good and because he didn't have that much competition, and the same problem probably hurt his cross country times this fall. Running in a new conference, Baker was seldom pushed and came to the sectional meet worried about whether or not he could do the job.

He rose to the occasion then and probably will again. The unlikely setting of his tale and all aside, he is a natural.

"It can be a little bit more difficult for them, but you do find some pretty good distance runners in the rural areas," said State's Jones. "Don't forget, Jim Ryun was a Kansas farmboy."