Frank Baker

Frank Baker was born in a house in Asbury on October 27, 1937, to J.B. and Ethel Thomason Baker. Frank worked for his dad on the poultry farm and peddling wares. In his spare time, Mr. Baker would only let Frank play basketball. Both Mr. and Mrs. Baker played basketball at Asbury in the very early days of the school. Frank played on the ninth grade school team as a sixth-grader. As a ninth-grader, he played in the first game ever played in the old gym at Asbury against Union Grove during the 1951-52 school year. Frank was the smallest kid on the team, but he was one of the best. His principal/coach, Marshall County Sports Hall-of-Fame Inductee Cecil Wright, encouraged Frank to try out for the team at Albertville. He made the varsity squad his first year as a tenth-grader, and became a starter by mid-season. His coach that first year in Aggieland was another Marshall County Sports Hall of Fame member, Vernon Wells. Frank had three different head coaches while a player at Albertville High School. His junior year, future long-time Boaz High School principal Ollin Hayes was the head coach, while Coach Frank Alford was the coach for his senior year. The highlight of his playing days was scoring 31 points in a game against DAR, which was a single-game record at Albertville High at that time. When Frank graduated from AHS, he went to Auburn and majored in agricultural engineering. Although Frank was an Auburn University student, Coach Frank Alford, who had left Albertville to become the head coach at Athens State, and Coach Emmett Plunkett of Snead State asked him to come play college ball for them. Frank loved it at Auburn, though, and stayed there. While playing intramurals, Frank caught the eye of AU freshman coach Bill Lynn. He asked him to come out for the team, but Frank was a sophomore, and thus, too old. Frank graduated from Auburn in December 1959. On March 4, 1961, Frank married the former Mary Moore. He went into the chicken business and was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1961. He got out, and in August of 1963, Frank got his teaching certificate in mathematics. He took a teaching and basketball coaching job at Asbury Junior High and coached there for five years. The principal at Albertville High School convinced him to leave Asbury to coach at Albertville, so he became the B-team coach at AHS for two years under Charter Class Inductee Shannon Sloan. Frank got out of coaching for a couple of years while teaching at Albertville. He then got the opportunity to go back to Asbury and coach in the fall of 1972. While in his second stint at AJHS, Frank coached three teams of boys every year, and coached the girls team the last ten years of his coaching career. Some of the greatest players to ever come through Albertville High School started out playing for Frank at Asbury. He won 222 games coaching the boys and won 100 games as the girls coach. He coached all those years at Asbury without an assistant coach of any kind. He needed help only one time in his career, one night when he was very sick. Frank retired from teaching and coaching in 1990. When time came for the new gym at Asbury to be built, the Marshall County Board of Education, along with the support of the Asbury community, voted to name the facility Frank Baker Gymnasium. Since his retirement from teaching and coaching, Frank worked in the poultry business for Wayne Farms for 17 years before retiring for good. He and Mary have four children, twin daughters Ann and Jan and their husbands Phillip and Mike, and sons Joey and Tim and their wives Laura and Pam. Frank and Mary have eight grandchildren. They are Whitley, Will, Corey, Colton, Lindsey, Ethan, Julie and Emily.