RallyNorth.net

Coach's Corner: Beverly's Dan Bauer

Wednesday, October, 31 By Mike Grenier
Staff writer

Dan Bauer has coached the Beverly High football team for five years, but he has deep Midwest roots.

Growing up in Ballwin, Missouri, just outside of St. Louis, Bauer played football, baseball and was a wrestler at Parkway South High School.

He excelled in wrestling, qualifying for the state tournament held at the University of Missouri for two straight years. As a senior, Bauer placed fifth in the state in the 185-pound class.

But it was football that finally brought him east. Bauer went Ivy League, playing for the University of Pennsylvania, where he was a captain his senior year. Bauer was an All-Ivy nose tackle his senior year and graduated in 1989.

The 1990s were spent learning the coaching business. Bauer started off as a volunteer assistant at Princeton, moved on to the University of the South in Sewanee, Tenn. for three years and then became an assistant at Tufts in Medford for five seasons. He shifted to high school coaching at Melrose (as an assistant) in 2001 and was hired to lead the Beverly High program two years later. He's also an assistant principal at Beverly High.

Wrestling has much more prestige in the Midwest than it does around here. What was it like to compete in the state tourney in Missouri?
"I was just happy to be there. The state tourney was held where the University of Missouri plays basketball, so it was a pretty big deal for a kid. The spotlight was on you and it was a big experience to be away from home. It was a lot of fun."

How did you end up going to Penn to play football?
"A man named Jim Dunsmore, a Penn alum, took an interest in me and a couple of other guys in high school. I was the first one in my family to go to college and it was a great opportunity. It showed me that there was more to the world than St. Louis."

What were some highlights of playing at Penn?
"We beat Navy at Annapolis and that was a very big game for us. We ran the table after that and finished 10-0. We were ranked in the top 20 in Division 1-AA. I was a nickel pass rusher early in my career and then I became a nose tackle."

What happened to the players that were on that 10-0 team?
"A couple of them were scab players when the NFL went on strike in 1987. I saw a couple of them play for the New York Giants on Monday Night Football. That was pretty wild."

What did you take away from your football experience at Penn?
"Playing there showed me that you didn't have to be the biggest guy or the most athletic guy to make it. It showed me the value of hard work and thinking on your own. I was lucky that good things happened to me my senior year at Penn. I was a captain and All-Ivy as a 245-pound nose tackle. That's a little less than I weigh now. Actually, I haven't seen that weight in years."

Did you plan on being a coach all along?
"Not really. After graduating from college, I stayed in the east and worked for a year. I quit my fulltime job to become a volunteer assistant at Penn. I wasn't married at the time, but I was pretty darn close, so that news went over like a lead balloon. But I needed to settle once and for all whether I should be coaching."

You were a college coach for several years. Did you ever think you'd end up at the high school level?
"I thought I would be a college coach my entire career. When I was at Tufts, I was able to get a masters degree in education and I felt that college (coaching) would be it for me. I never anticipated being a high school coach. But you never know how life will go; you can take turns at each corner."

What has it been like at Beverly High?
"I owe so much to Beverly High because it opened the doors to some educational opportunities. I love coaching these kids. When you're coaching small college ball, there's a lot of teaching involved, but there's a lot more teaching at the high school level. Plus, you're getting kids who are in that 15-18 age bracket and there's just a huge difference, mentally, physically and emotionally, in that age range. You can have more impact on younger kids. They're more impressionable. Overall, I feel very lucky and very blessed."

Every fan wants their school to win, but what do you strive to do at Beverly?
"I think what I enjoy most about Beverly is its great tradition and history. The city embraces the school and they want it to be successful. We had a great season last year (9-1), but this program is still evolving. There are a lot of things we do that you don't see on the surface. The program has made strides that way. We want our kids to be good citizens of the school and the community. We'd like them to give back through community service. We've had a couple of kids who didn't play that much whose parents have come back and said their kids learned important lessons when they were with us. To hear that stuff is more rewarding than anything else."

Coming in as an outsider, how quickly did you acclimated to the Beverly-Salem Thanksgiving Day rivalry?
"Fortunately, a few (former) Beverly head coaches were still around here. You had Billy Hamor and Roy Norden and Roger (Rosinski). And (assistant coach) Dave Wilbur has seen it from both sides of the bridge. Those coaches brought me up to speed on the rivalry and I found out it was a major deal to play Salem. It's funny. You go from a college defensive coordinator to a place like Beverly and find out the Salem game is bigger than any college game you've coached. It's not just the game, either. It's the week that leads up to it. That's why we always call the Salem game our second season."