Quarterback Brent Baldwin could not be much of a vocal leader during the first half of the 1995 Ball State University football season.
Trailing late in the first game of the season at Miami University, Baldwin drove his team down the field and eventually found himself facing second and goal. The then-junior ran an option to the end and collided with one of the opposing safeties.
"I ran around the end and kept the ball and their safety came up and put his helmet right underneath my ear pad, and immediately I could tell something was wrong," Baldwin said. "So I called timeout and I went over to the sidelines and I told Coach [Bill] Lynch, 'I think I broke my jaw.'"
Lynch, however, had all the faith in his leader.
"He said, 'Well, can you go one more play?' and I'm like 'Yeah, just don't call another option play,'" Baldwin said.
Baldwin then handed the ball off to running back Michael Blair, who scored on the play, and the Cardinals would go on to defeat the RedHawks 17-15.
Baldwin's heroics came at a price. When the team got back to Muncie, he learned that his jaw was indeed broken, and it would need to be wired shut for six weeks so he could continue to play.
"I was drinking shakes from that point on," Baldwin said. "I'm sitting there watching all of my lineman friends scarf down these big steaks and everything else, and I'm there drinking shakes. I lost about 15 pounds, but it was worth it to get a chance to play with those guys."
On Friday night, Baldwin will have the chance to eat like a king when he is inducted into the Ball State Athletics Hall of Fame.
"It's a great honor and one that I'll definitely cherish," Baldwin said. "You look at some of the past players that are in there now, and it's a wonderful feeling that you're going to be put along with some of the other greats, especially when you don't consider yourself to be as good as those other people. I'm just honored and blessed and thankful that I get the chance to be up."
Cardinals steal All-State Quarterback
If it were not for a last-minute recruiting visit to Ball State during his senior year in high school, Baldwin probably would have instead been an inductee into Western Michigan University Athletics Hall of Fame.
The Penn High School product, who was 36-3 in three seasons, was selected to the Indiana Football Coaches All-State team his senior year when he threw for 25 touchdowns with a 63 percent completion rate, and received attention from several Mid-American Conference schools.
Although he had a scholarship offer from Ball State the summer before his senior season, a visit to Western Michigan almost had Baldwin wearing brown and gold on his college uniform.
"When I started doing my recruiting visits after my senior year, the first one I took was to Western Michigan and I really, really liked it and I was almost dead set on going there," said Baldwin, who was also conference MVP his senior year.
A trip to Muncie, however, changed his mind.
"Then I went to Ball State just to kind of compare, and I'm glad I did because I fell in love with the place and was really happy with my time there and thankful for the opportunity they gave me. Luckily it worked out," Baldwin said.
Sophomore earns starting job
Baldwin was redshirted during his first year at Ball State, but was able to take advantage of studying then-Cardinals quarterback and 1993 MAC MVP Mike Neu.
And, although Baldwin did not win the starting position going into the following season, he used what opportunities he had to showcase his abilities.
In the first game of the season at West Virginia University, Baldwin came in during the second quarter and threw a touchdown on his first snap of the season.
"I got hit as I threw it, so I'm on my back, I don't see what happens, so I'm hoping that he caught it," Baldwin said, "but the crowd did not roar, and on the road, that's a good thing, So I knew he caught it and we scored. That's something I'll never forget about my playing days - in my first meaning snap in a college game, I threw a touchdown, which was pretty cool."
Baldwin did not start the next game against Purdue University, but he came off the bench and finished 6-for-7 with two touchdowns in the second half. Having seen enough at that point, the coaching staff decided to make Baldwin the starter.
He would then go on to start 31 straight games.
Former Ball State offensive coordinator Rich Spisak, who is currently Ball State Senior Director Emeritus of Development, said Baldwin's off-field work ethic paid dividends.
"Brent knew how to study film," said Spisak, who coached at Ball State for 18 years. "His stepdad is a coach, so he grew up with it. So when he watched film and tape, he knew what to look for. He had that instinct of things."
Baldwin would start nine games his freshman season, throwing for 1,342 yards and 16 touchdowns while ranking second in the MAC and 28th in the country with a 133.79 passer efficiency rating.
"I remember [my stepfather] telling me that half of college football is waiting for your opportunity and the other half is taking advantage once you got it," said Baldwin, whose childhood sports idols included Terry Bradshaw, Dan Marino and Joe Montana. "That's what I tried to do, and I didn't want to let go once I got it. It was special that they had some confidence and believed in me."
Never relying on a rocket arm or the ability to tuck the ball and run, Baldwin said he tried to make the players around him better.
Baldwin's decision-making abilities were on display his junior season, when he threw 1,192 yards and five touchdowns in 11 games. However, he made up for it by rushing for 248 yards and collecting a team-high six rushing touchdowns.
"I wasn't the fastest, I wasn't the strongest, I wasn't the best quarterback by any means, but I was always taught by a lot of great people that the role of the quarterback is not to make all of the great plays, but to avoid all of the stupid ones," Baldwin said. "I tried not to turn the ball over and just tried to lead the guys on the team - tried to get them to play beyond their means - and hopefully I was able to do that."
Senior dream season
Before his senior season, Baldwin's teammates voted as team captain.
"That was special because that is something that is voted on by your peers," Baldwin said. "That is probably the most special award that I could have gotten and something that I still cherish today."
The award would not be the last for Baldwin in the 1996 season.
He led the Cardinals to an 8-4 record, and more importantly, a MAC championship and an appearance in the Las Vegas Bowl.
Morry Mannies has been the "Voice of the Cardinals" football and basketball games for 52 years. He is also on the selection committee for Ball State Athletics Hall of Fame inductees.
"I would rank [Baldwin] as good as a leader at quarterback that we have ever had," Mannies said. "To be a great quarterback, in addition to putting up the numbers, you have to lead your team to a championship, and that was a huge factor in my voting for him."
Spisak said although Baldwin was not the most gifted athlete on the field, his tough and competitive nature made up for it.
"[Baldwin] was just a gamer," Spisak said. "He had a good head on his shoulders, had good common sense and always did the right thing."
In Baldwin's senior season, he threw for 1,703 yards with 14 touchdowns. His 4,256 career passing yards are fourth all-time at Ball State.
A coaching career begins
Following his senior season, Baldwin, who graduated from Ball State with a degree in secondary education, accepted an offer from Lynch to join the staff as a graduate assistant coach.
Baldwin said the choice to pursue coaching was an easy one.
"So many coaches had influenced me and made me a better person," Baldwin said. "All of those guys had such a big impact on me and influenced my life, that I wanted to have the same chance to do that to some other kids."
Baldwin would go on to coach at Anderson University and Shepherd College before returning to the Cardinals as an assistant in 2001.
"It's the friendships you build and the relationships you have and those type of bonds that you remember the most," Baldwin said
In the fall of 2007, Baldwin began his first season as head coach at Goshen High School, guiding the Redskins to an 8-4 record,-¡ the school's first winning record since 2002, and was selected as the Indiana Football Coaches Association Class 5A Region 2 Coach of the Year.
Last week, though, Baldwin announced his intentions to resign as head coach at Goshen for personal reasons.
Bright career ahead
Currently, Baldwin is not coaching. However, Mannies said it won't be long until Baldwin begins to receive coaching opportunity offers.
"[Baldwin] has been around the game all of his life - at some point you decide to do something else," Mannies said. "He is a winner not only as a quarterback, but as a father and husband."
Currently, Baldwin lives in Muncie with his wife, Elizabeth, and two children, Garrett and Sydney.
"I have been blessed to be around good people that have taught the discipline values and things of that nature," Baldwin said. "I'm just blessed that I've got a wonderful wife and two beautiful children, and I'm just trying to be the best father and husband that I can be, and hopefully I'll make an impact and an influence on other people's lives as well as by doing things the right way."
Broken jaw or not, Baldwin currently has one more play to run: a Hall of Fame acceptance speech.
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