Charles A. Baird (January 17, 1870 – November 30, 1944) was an American football manager, university athletic director, and banker.
He was the manager of the University of Michigan football team from 1893 to 1895 and the school's first athletic director from 1898 to 1909. During his time as Michigan's athletic director, he was responsible for the hiring of Coach Fielding H. Yost and the construction of Ferry Field, the largest college athletic grounds in the United States at that time. Michigan teams excelled in all fields of athletics during Baird's tenure at Michigan, including football and track. Michigan's track teams won six Western Conference team championships and 16 Olympic medals (including 7 gold medals) during Baird's eleven years as athletic director. Baird also presided over Michigan athletics for the school's first Western Conference football championship in 1898 and Yost's "point-a-minute" teams from 1901 to 1905. His business acumen has been credited with turning Michigan's athletic department into a major success and a model for other universities in the early 20th century.
Baird became embroiled in controversy in 1905 when Stanford University President David Starr Jordan published allegations that "the firm of Yost & Baird, victory-makers," were engaged in "professionalism" at Michigan. Baird was also a central player in the 1907 withdrawal of the University of Michigan from the Western Conference in protest over strict regulations imposed by conference faculty, including a reduction in the football season to five games (reduced from 13 in 1905) and a fifty cent limit on ticket prices.
Baird left his position as athletic director in 1909 and moved to Kansas City, Missouri where he became a successful banker and investor. In 1935, Baird donated the Charles Baird Carillon, the fourth heaviest carillon in the world, to the University of Michigan.
Early years Charles Baird enrolled in the University of Michigan in 1890 as a student in the law department. In 1891, he entered the literary department and was elected to the athletic board as its freshman representative. In 1893, he was elected as the manager of the football team and held that position in the 1893, 1894, and 1895 seasons. Despite receiving his A.B. degree in 1895, he was employed as the football team's manager for the ensuing fall, reportedly "by reason of his business ability." His brother, James Baird, who earned an Engineering degree in 1896, played on the football team and was Captain in 1894.
+ University of Michigan Football Year Record Points Scored Points Allowed 1893 7–3 278 102 1894 9–1–1 244 84 1895 8–1 266 14 Total 24–5–1 788 200
Michigan's first athletic director
1898 season By 1897, the finances of the Michigan Athletic Association under constantly changing student control were "at a low ebb." In 1898, Baird was asked to return to Ann Arbor as the "graduate manager" or "superintendent" of athletics. Baird was given "complete control of all branches of athletics at Michigan" in order to induce him to return to the school. One of Baird's first moves was to persuade trainer Keene Fitzpatrick to rejoin him at the school. Fitzpatrick had been the trainer of the 1894 and 1895 teams with Baird, but spent the 1896 and 1897 seasons as the trainer for Yale's football team. Gustave Ferbert, who had played on the 1893–1895 teams managed by Baird stayed on as coach in 1898.
The 1898 Wolverines went 10–0 and won the Western Conference (now known as the Big Ten Conference) championship. The 1898 team outscored its opponents 205 to 26, and closed the season with a 12–11 win over Amos Alonzo Stagg's University of Chicago team on November 24, 1898. The game was played in Chicago with a paid attendance of 12,000—the largest crowd to watch a Michigan football game up to that time. The 1898 victory over Chicago served as the inspiration for Louis Elbel to write The Victors, Michigan's fight song. Elbel's lyric, "Champions of the West," refers to Michigan's having won the 1898 Western Conference championship—the first in the school's history.
1899 season Seeking to increase the prestige of Michigan's football program, Baird traveled during the winter of 1899 seeking to arrange games with the country's top teams. In January 1899, he met with representatives of Pennsylvania, Princeton, and Harvard—then considered the top football programs in the country. He succeeded in signing a contract with Penn for a November game in Philadelphia. In February 1899, he traveled to Madison, Wisconsin where he signed a two-year contract for football, baseball and track matches with the University of Wisconsin—a program with which Michigan had cut off relations in 1893.
The 1899 football team finished the season with an 8–2 record, losing 11–10 to Penn in Philadelphia, and 17–5 to Wisconsin. The Wisconsin game, however, was an early demonstration of Baird's business acumen. Baird contracted for the game to be played in Chicago on Thanksgiving. Both schools had a large alumni base in Chicago, and the site was within an easy train ride from each school. As a result, the game drew 18,000 paying spectators—breaking the Michigan attendance record set the prior year in the Chicago game.
When Baird arrived in 1898, the athletic department was $3,000 in debt. By the end of the 1899 season, Baird had paid off the debt and restored the department's credit. In December 1899, Baird was rewarded for his efforts when the university appointed him "director of outdoor athletics," with the rank of junior professor in the university and a salary of $2,000.
1900 season In January 1900, Baird met with Amos Alonzo Stagg in Ann Arbor and negotiated a two-year contract with rival, the University of Chicago, including a Thanksgiving game in Chicago. Though Chicago would be playing at home in 1900, Baird required that Stagg agree to "an equal division of the gate receipts." In May 1900, Baird lost his head football coach, Gustave Ferbert, to the Klondike Gold Rush. Ferbert left Ann Arbor to join "two other prominent Michigan football men" to prospect for gold in Alaska. (Ferbert returned from Alaska in 1908 as a millionaire after striking gold, though these claims are debated by modern historians.Starved or Drowned or Chased Down by Wolves: The Disappearance of Dutch Ferbert ) Langdon "Biff" Lea was hired to replace Ferbert as coach for the 1900 football season. Lea had played at Princeton from 1892 to 1895 and was considered one of the greatest football players in Princeton's history. The 1900 team finished in 5th place in the Western Conference with a 7–2–1 record, losing to rival Chicago and to Iowa.
Yost's "point-a-minute" teams
Hiring of Fielding Yost
In January 1901, Langdon Lea returned to his alma mater, Princeton, as its first "official" football coach. Baird was left without a football coach for the second time in eight months. At the end of the 1900 football season, Stanford University passed a rule requiring all coaches to be alumni. The decision left Stanford's football coach, Fielding H. Yost, who was not an alumnus, without a job. Yost wrote to the University of Illinois in December 1900 seeking a job. Illinois did not have an opening, but the school's athletic director passed along Yost's letter to Baird at Michigan. Baird asked Yost to come to Ann Arbor to interview for the football coaching job. Before leaving for Ann Arbor, Yost sent Baird a box of clippings and scrapbooks. Baird met Yost at the Ann Arbor train station, where Yost is reported to have told Baird, "There are three things that make a winning football team, spirit, manpower and coaching. If your boys love Meeshegan, they've got the spirit, you see. If they turnout, that takes care of the manpower. I'll take care of the coaching." Baird offered Yost the job at a salary of $2,300 (the same as a full professor) for only three months work. Baird reportedly told Yost, "Well, you've got a real job ahead of you. You've got to beat Chicago."
1901 season The 1901 football team is considered by some the greatest Michigan football team of all time. In Yost's first year as coach, Michigan finished 11–0, did not allow a single point to be scored by an opposing team, and outscored its opponents 550–0. The 1901 Wolverines became known as the "point-a-minute" team, as their offensive production resulted in an average of one point being scored every minute. Even after the 1901 season had commenced, Baird continued to seek opportunities to increase revenues from the team's success. In mid-October 1901, Baird signed a contract with the University of Iowa for a Michigan-Iowa game to be played on Thanksgiving Day at Chicago's West Side baseball park. The location was chosen because of the large potential for receipts, as the Michigan-Wisconsin game there in 1899 had generated more than $15,000. In November 1901, Baird issued a public offer that Michigan would play any rival claimant for the Western Conference championship in a post-season game. The proposed game, which would have matched Michigan against the winner of the Minnesota-Wisconsin game, would have allowed for the determination of an undisputed champion, and also presented an opportunity for substantial receipts at the gate. Michigan's offer was reported in the press as "practically a challenge," but the offer was declined.
The first Rose Bowl game During the fall of 1901, the organizers of the Tournament of Roses Parade decided to hold a football game in order to bring tourism into the area. Tournament of Roses Association president, James Wagner, guaranteed $3,500 to cover the expenses of bringing the football teams to Pasadena, California. In October 1901, Wagner wrote to Baird, offering to pay Michigan's expenses to travel to play in the game. Baird proved his reputation as a negotiator in his correspondence with Wagner. On October 30, 1901, Baird wrote: We desire to make the trip to the Pacific coast during the holidays, providing it can be made to pay. The University of Washington has written us in regard to a game at Seattle, and we would be willing to play them there Christmas. We would be glad to play the winner of the Stanford-California game at Los Angeles on New Years day. However, if this trip is made to the coast, it will be necessary for us to secure, in advance, a guarantee of expenses. To play two games it will be necessary for us to carry eighteen players, in addition to the two coaches, trainer and myself, or in other words, we must secure enough to cover the expenses of twenty-two men, traveling in first-class style...
Wagner offered Michigan $2 a day for meal money, to which Baird replied, "We won't come unless we can go comfortably and in reasonable style. We want $3 a day meal money."
Baird's financial demands were met, and Michigan traveled to Pasadena to play in the first Rose Bowl on January 1, 1902. The game featured Michigan playing Stanford, the school which had terminated Yost as its football coach after the 1900 season. The Michigan team compiled a 49–0 lead in the game, and with eight minutes remaining Stanford captain Ralph Fisher asked that the game be stopped, and Michigan agreed. Following the mismatch, Michigan was not invited to play again in the Rose Bowl for 46 years, when it defeated USC by an identical score of 49–0 in the 1948 Rose Bowl.
1902 season