West Orange boys lacrosse coach Bill Baker learned game on the job

Bill Baker arrived on campus in Winter Garden in 2006 with the intention to coach baseball. A decade later, he is a veteran lacrosse coach with a successful program.

By Steven Ryzewski
| 7:19 p.m. March 3, 2016

Bill Baker addresses his team during a timeout. Baker, who originally played and coached baseball, has been coaching the West Orange boys lacrosse team for 10 years.

Sports

WINTER GARDEN Bill Baker showed up to his first few practices as an assistant lacrosse coach with his baseball glove.

It was the spring of 2006, and Baker, a West Orange alumnus who had just returned to the area after coaching junior varsity baseball in Tallahassee, didn’t own a lacrosse stick. Hired as a full-time substitute teacher, Baker had returned to his alma mater to get involved with baseball coach Jesse Marlo’s program.

His roommate, Bobby Brannon, was the Warriors’ boys lacrosse coach at the time. While he waited to start with the baseball program, Baker figured he’d kill some time and give Brannon a hand at lacrosse practice. It proved to be a fun experience, and the Warriors went 11-5 that spring.

Of course, everything changed when Brannon resigned as coach and West Orange administrators approached his baseball glove-wielding assistant about being his replacement.

“They said, ‘You might not think you know anything about the sport, but you’re the only other person on campus that has a clue,’” Baker recalled.

Baker agreed, taking over as boys lacrosse head coach for the spring 2007 season, with the understanding that it would be a temporary situation until a more dedicated coach could be hired. Then Baker would be free to get involved with the Warriors’ baseball program.

Bill Baker says he became engrossed with the strategy of lacrosse, which in some ways reminds him of basketball.

A decade later, Baker is now the veteran coach for the West Orange boys lacrosse program, with the Warriors off to a 6-2 start in his 10th season roaming the sideline at Raymond Screws Field.

“By my fourth year, the 2010 team was full of boys I’d been coaching since they were freshmen,” Baker said. “We’d become pretty good, and I started to understand what I was doing out here. … It got to a point where I thought, ‘I like this a lot. Let’s stick with it and see where it goes.’”

"It got to a point where I thought, ‘I like this a lot. Let’s stick with it and see where it goes.’”

— Bill Baker, West Orange lacrosse coach

Baker became engrossed with the strategy of lacrosse, which reminded him of basketball — another passion. All these years later, current Warriors such as junior captain Daniel Luette are only vaguely aware that their head coach came to campus with the intent of coaching baseball.

“I didn’t know that he had no experience (coaching lacrosse) prior to this,” Luette said. “I can’t tell, but I did hear he is a baseball guy.”

The Warriors have been strong under Baker’s leadership and won four consecutive district championships in 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015. The 2007 season, Baker’s first, was the only one in which West Orange amassed double-digit losses.

So far this spring, Baker has been pleasantly surprised with a young team that has notched some credible victories.

At this point, Baker is as much a lacrosse guy as any other coach in the area — just one who still likes to hang out in the dugout on the baseball diamond when lacrosse practice ends.

Contact Steven Ryzewski at [email protected].