2010 West Central Tribune Hengstler-Ranweiler winner...
Joel Bauman ready for his next ‘Garden Party’
by Ted Almen
I went to a garden party to reminisce with my old friends
A chance to share old memories and play our songs again
When I got to the garden party, they all knew my name
No one recognized me, I didn’t look the same
But it’s all right now, I learned my lesson well.
You see, ya can’t please everyone, so ya got to please yourself...
When Ricky Nelson released this song, a big kid named Larry Mulder was
the star on the Renville High School basketball floor. Later that
spring when Mulder accepted the West Central Tribune’s Herb Hengstler Award as the best male athlete in the region, Nelson was climbing the Billboard chart, all the way up to #6.
That was 38 years ago. Two days ago the 2010 Hengstler-Ranweiler Award
winner, KMS’ own Joel Bauman, was singing the same tune as he reflected
on four outstanding seasons for the Fighting Saints.
And he didn’t really know it.
Joel is only 18, of course, two decades removed from ‘Garden Party.’
His old man (as well as this writer) were just pups -- eighth grade
Eaglets actually -- at Kerkhoven-Sunburg High when it hit.
But the words flashed like a memory of the young Bauman heading up
field with a horde of opposing would-be tacklers’ trailing woefully
into the endzone. “The expectations some people put on you can be
negative and positive,” Joel explained in a very un-18-like way. “It
teaches you a lot of things... like you can’t please everybody but you
have to try please yourself. And then you hope others follow.”
That’s prophetic coming from a kid who has helped guide two Fighting
Saints teams to KMS’ first and second ever state team championships --
football in the fall of 2008 and wrestling about four months later. One
thing about Bauman is that he’s more than just another member of the
squad. In football he ranks second all-time in Minnesota high school
rushing; in wrestling he has two individual championships to his name
to go along with 170 prep victories. In track, a sport he admittedly
had to be talked into, he holds the BKMS school record in the 400
meters -- and that’s in a race he didn’t even run in this spring. He
has participated in two state track meets, placing third in his new
event this year, the 300 meter hurdles, just last Saturday.
Yet with all that success, it’s common to see Bauman down on the mat
with a second grade wrestler, letting the wide-eyed wannabe complete a
move on his big mentor. It’s just as common to see the winner of 14
athletic letters singing in the choir or acting in a play. In short,
there’s a lot more to Joel Bauman than just a duffle bag full of
trophies.
Still it is on the field and mat where much of his accolades have come,
and when the Trib named him the top jock of West Central Minnesota last
Thursday he accepted it as smoothly as one of his patented ankle-picks
for a two-point take-down.
“It doesn’t define my career but it helps shape it and tell people what
I’m all about,” he said. However, to say he was aiming all along for
the biggest athletic award in this part of the state would be a
stretch.
“I wasn’t going to go out for track this year. I knew I was being
looked at for the Hengstler-Ranweiler, but I was going to train for
wrestling up until Nationals in July, and work. I also wanted to work
on mixed martial arts because I wanted to fight this summer.”
“But dad kept pushing me and a lot of people were asking me to run,” he
said. He acquiesced, and as if the H-R folks really needed any more
reason to make him their man, this was it. In the end Joel didn’t
really regret his decision either. “It’s another form of competition. I
love competing.”
Bauman was the second KMS athlete in as many years to win the H-R Award
as his former wrestling partner and future Gopher teammate Kevin
Steinhaus took it home in 2009. Probably for most high school athletes
this would be the apex of their game, but not necessarily so for Joel.
The biggest honor for him was being a national champion in Greco-Roman
wrestling in 2008. Then of course there are the three All-American
honors for his summer wrestling, two individual state championships in
wrestling, and the football and wrestling state team titles. “You can
never forget your teammates and the national title, but I am honored to
get this award,” he said of the H-R.
Getting to this level took more than Joel’s enormous natural ability. A lot more.
“Drive... and you’ve just got to hate losing. You really have to want
to be the best and have the drive to get there. You also have to be
open minded to coaching, to be coachable and accept other people’s
opinions.”
Sometimes those opinions aren’t very positive. Like any higher profile
athlete, there will be doubters and second-guessers. Joel has seen a
lot of that on various open forums where people who most likely
couldn’t hold a candle to him athletically can nonetheless critique him
mercilessly -- and anonymously. He just laughs that all off and said it
actually served as a motivating force behind his efforts. “You can’t
let it bother you,” he said. “That’s what they want. Plus, then you’re
not getting better.”
Bauman is also quick to point out the many positive influences on his
life. “Mike Haglund. He’s like my second father. Mike has always wanted
me to be a Gopher. And Dad has helped me out a lot, as have all my
coaches. James Cortez (football) was one of the first people to put any
kind of pressure on me to get better. Wes Haglund (wrestling) I think
was the first person to actually see my level of potential at a young
age. He always said he called it at fourth or fifth grade.”
Joel recalled an evening coming up on four years ago now, when football
coach Cortez looked up and down the sideline before the gaze came to
him. “He yelled, ‘Joel, get in there.’ Everybody was watching. I
couldn’t mess up. Then coach (Chuck) Kavanagh came up to me at halftime
and told me to just keep running my hardest. That pretty much made me
man-up. That kicked me out in the open and made me do my thing.”
Steinhaus and his Greco-Roman wrestling coach, Dan Chandler, have
really pushed Bauman. He also considers the positive press he has
received from Wally Loven and The Banner, and Brian Jerzak with The
Guillotine as being positive influences.
For the vast majority of high school athletes, when the final curtain
falls on their prep career, it’s a wrap. Not in Bauman’s case, though.
This fall he will join Steinhaus as a member of J Robinson’s Golden
Gophers wrestling team. This next ‘Garden Party’ will be at a whole new
level for Bauman, yet he already has his sights set on the top: no less
than an NCAA national title. Then he’s sticking to his dream of
becoming a champion in the Ultimate Fighting Championship, followed by
settling down and becoming a chiropractor. “I’ll see where life takes
me. It’s in God’s hands.”
Wherever that path may be, one thing Joel would be well served to remember comes from that old song of Ricky’s:
...it’s all right now, learned my lesson well
You see, ya can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.
