Shipley basketball star learned well from father

Shipley basketball player Isaiah Baker still remembers the party.

He was about 13 years old, and it was the first time he had seen kids drink alcohol at a party. Some of them became rambunctious. Baker grew so uncomfortable that he wanted to leave. He called his father to pick him up.

Jimmie Baker had to be smiling on the other end. This was more proof that he had raised his son properly, that his son would not follow in his nearly fatal footsteps.

Three decades earlier, Jimmie Baker was a record-setting forward in college before his career was derailed by drug and alcohol use.

Isaiah Baker, a standout player and perhaps a better student, learned from that experience.

"A lot of the abuse he went through stemmed from not being sure of where you stand, being unsure about yourself," Isaiah Baker said. "What I took away from that is that you have to know in all situations where you stand. Growing up, he would always say, 'If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything.'

"If I'm in a situation that's kind of dicey, where do I stand on this? Or if I'm at a point of conflict, where is my position on this? Where am I going to draw the line and say, no, I'm not doing this, or I'll do this but not that?

"That's what he taught me - if you don't know where you're going to draw that line, that's when you end up doing something you'll regret. That's when you end up overdoing something. That's when you end up using something that you shouldn't be using."

Isaiah Baker, 18, who goes by "Zay," is a fifth-year senior who averages 9.8 points and 7.4 rebounds and has earned a scholarship to Holy Cross. At 6-foot-8 and 230 pounds, he has a nice outside shooting touch and good ballhandling skills for a big man.

In that way, he's a lot like his dad.

Jimmie Baker played at Olney and went to UNLV. There, as a freshman, he started using various drugs and alcohol, and his abuse escalated to include cocaine the next year. A 6-8 forward, he played for the Rebels as a sophomore and junior from 1972 to '74 - freshmen could not join the varsity back then - and transferred for his senior season to Hawaii, where he said his drug use subsided.

Drafted by the 76ers, he signed with the ABA's Kentucky Colonels and played five games before tearing up his knee. He returned to Hawaii, seeing that as a safe haven and hoping to get back in shape, but he drifted back toward drugs and alcohol.

On Christmas Eve 1977, the day before his 24th birthday, Jimmie Baker was run down by a car. His left arm was left paralyzed (and was later amputated), his neck was broken, and his left leg was shattered. Doctors, he said, told his family that they were 85 percent sure he would not survive. And because the leg wasn't repaired properly, it ended up a few inches shorter than his right leg, causing a limp.

The alcohol and drug use continued.

"I couldn't fathom looking at myself in a mirror or a window seeing myself without an arm and walking with a limp," Jimmie Baker said. "The only way that I could function was to get high. I had to use substances to feel like I was normal."

His playing career obviously was over.

Still, the resumé is sterling. He was the most valuable player in the prestigious Dapper Dan all-star game. He averaged 37 points as a UNLV freshman and was the only college freshman invited to try out for the 1972 U.S. Olympic team; he quit the tryouts, though, feeling homesick.

Thirty-eight years after leaving UNLV, Jimmie Baker still holds university records for rebounding in a game (26), season (15.1 average), and career (12.8 average). His highlight as a pro, he said, was scoring 17 points in one quarter of a preseason game against the NBA's Washington Bullets, who featured Elvin Hayes and Wes Unseld.

"I have to imagine if I had I stayed the course, I might have been pretty successful," Jimmie Baker said. "But when I look at my life, when I look at my son and daughter, I am the richest man alive. I have a lot of people that love me, a family that loves me, and a son and daughter that adore me. I can't imagine anything better than that."

Jimmie Baker, 58, says he has been in chronic pain since 1977, pain that since 1998 has left him unable to work full time. His wife, Barrie, a doctor, is a medical director for an insurance firm.

His family history with alcohol abuse goes back perhaps as far as his paternal grandfather, he said, but he has been clean and sober since 1987, well before Isaiah and daughter Asia, a sophomore player for the Shipley girls' team, were born.

Jimmie Baker has used his experiences to help both them and others, as a former addictions counselor who still speaks periodically to groups. Both his children have attended his presentations.

"There were always things around the house, these little charts and posters, that he would use for his clients," Isaiah Baker said, "but he would also make sure that . . . we weren't ignorant to the different drugs and substances that people used."

Isaiah Baker grew up quickly on the basketball court, too.

He said his father never pressured him into basketball, and Isaiah didn't start playing until he was 111/2. Tall for his age, he dominated early. In his first game, he scored 10 points.

Jimmie Baker has never coached Isaiah. Jimmie said he much preferred being a father to being a father/coach. But he made sure to place his son with coaches who would stress fundamentals.

"That's one thing I know different college coaches have told me, that I have my fundamentals down, and I really attribute that to him," Isaiah Baker said. "I remember he said, 'If you're going to play this game, you're going to play it the right way.' "

Isaiah Baker, who lives in Wyncote, played his first three high school seasons at Episcopal Academy. Around his sophomore year, he said, he read an article in which Michael Jordan talked about waking up early and heading to the gym to work out before breakfast. Isaiah Baker took it to heart.

He started setting his alarm for 5 a.m., putting up cones in his driveway or on the street, and dribbling. The dribble drills became a daily, predawn routine. His neighbors weren't pleased. It might be a bit too early to bounce a ball repeatedly, he was told. His father wasn't pleased, either. He talked Isaiah into cutting back on the a.m. workouts so the youngster could get more sleep.

"He has a great thirst for the game. He has a work ethic that is unbelievable," Jimmie Baker said. "My son just has a motor that is not seen with a lot of people his age."

After a very brief stay at Westtown School, Isaiah Baker carried that work ethic to Shipley, where he transferred and was "reclassed," repeating his junior year in 2010-11. That extra year helped him mature on the court and off, he said. He has scored 2,180 on the SAT. In his fifth year of high school, he is taking honors classes in statistics, global studies, history, and philosophy, and an online advanced math course offered by Stanford.

He hopes to major in economics and political science at Holy Cross. Eventually, he wants to work on Wall Street, as a broker or for a venture capital firm.

On the hardwood, he projects as a power forward at Holy Cross, said Crusaders assistant coach Kevin Robinson, who recruited the younger Baker with fellow assistant Dan Engelstad.

"The guy is pretty good facing the basket," Robinson said. "He can make that 15- to 17-footer. He can put the ball on the deck a little bit, but we'd like to see him keep developing his back-to-the-basket skills. He's a really good rebounder, and that's something he's going to add a lot to our program as well."

Jimmie Baker, obviously, is thrilled that his son continues to follow in some of his footsteps.

"It's just been a joy to watch him really develop and see his dream come true," Jimmie Baker said. "Because he can honestly say, and honestly feel, that he's worked very hard to get here."

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