Carthage College Athletics

J. Arthur Baird, ’00, a 1984 posthumous inductee into the Carthage Athletic Hall of Fame, had an athletic career that would raise an eyebrow or two these days in the NCAA. Four years of college eligibility wasn’t enough for Baird. His stellar record lasted seven years, including a four-year undergraduate career at Carthage (1896-1900) and a three-year career at Northwestern while pursuing a law degree.

After Baird graduated in 1900, teammate William M. Ruthrauff wrote University of Chicago football coach Alonzo Stagg, trying to interest the legendary coach in letting Baird join the 1900 Maroon football squad. In a return letter to Ruthrauff, Stagg said, “Baird is evidently a good all-around athlete, but I am looking for stars.” Indeed.

Undaunted, Ruthrauff’s father, Carthage president John M. Ruthrauff, intervened with Northwestern University, and the result was an invitation to Baird to attend law school and play football.

Baird became a star for the Wildcats, the first athlete to letter in three sports in one season: football, baseball and track. He was a punter and offensive guard on the football team and was named Chicago Daily News All-Big 10 as a sophomore. Perhaps to settle a score, Baird also played a significant role in Northwestern’s defeat of Chicago during the 1900 season.

In track, he was an outstanding performer in the high jump, the hurdles, the pole vault, and the throwing events. He was a center on Northwestern’s first basketball team and a first baseman on the diamond squad.

After receiving his law degree from Northwestern in the spring of 1903, Baird practiced law in Chicago, for the next three years, taking time off in the fall to coach football at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, (1903-1905) and at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington, (1906-1907), where his 1907 team reportedly upended the University of Washington.

He was named Carthage athletic director and men’s basketball coach in December 1907, added head football duties in the fall of 1908, and baseball responsibilities in 1910. He remained as both basketball and football coach through the end of the 1914 seasons and as baseball coach through 1916.

At the same time, he kept up his law practice and was elected as a judge in Hancock County in 1910. He served one term, returned to private practice, but was elected again in 1934 for a four-year term and re-elected in 1938, 1942, and 1946. Baird retired from the bench when his term expired in 1950, but remained active in the law until he died on July 26, 1964, in Galesburg, Illinois. Baird served as a member of the Carthage Board of Trustees for 40 years (1924-64).

Born on November 2, 1877, on a farm in Carthage Township, he married Georgia Hubbs of New York City on June 23, 1913. Georgia Baird died in October 1917.