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by, Braden Berg (for Ozarks Sports Zone)
URBANA, MO – In Skyline, they have a retired longtime football coach and athletic director from Kansas City running their game-clock.
Don Bauml was an athletic director in Kansas City for decades when he finally retired and moved to the Ozarks. But being retired and doing nothing just wasn’t for him.
“I just got bored, I had to do something. And some people told me about subbing down here in Skyline.” said Bauml. “I got to know the coaching staff and we talked a little bit about my past experiences and they offered me if I wanted to run the game block on Friday nights and I jumped at it.”
Bauml says the decision to help the team out was easy.
“This is what I need to be doing on Friday nights. It is my life, it has been my life since 1967.” said Bauml.
And he says “once a coach, always a coach.”
“When Skyline does something great, we score a touchdown, a great run, a great catch whatever I get excited up there. But when the bad things happen to us, we get beat deep on a pass, we get burned on a sweep or something my brain starts going into coaching analytics mode like how could we do this different, what adjustments can we make. And sometimes that is when I get messed up, I probably don’t do the best at that time on the clock as I should.” said Bauml.
The team even allows him to travel on some away games.
“It was just good to do that again. That is the good times, that is the stuff you remember. I don’t remember the scores of that game, but I remember taking the trip with them.” said Bauml.
Bauml has coached football games at Busch Stadium in St. Louis and Mizzou’sFaurot Field, but he says there is something special about Skyline’s football field.
“When I am up in the press box I can see the cattle grazing around here, they put Kenny Chesney and The Boys of Fall on the stadium speakers before the game, and it is a special thing. It is just a whole different aura about it.” said Bauml.
He says when he walked into Skyline on his first day of subbing, he felt like he had been here for a long time, and hopes to be helping the team for a long time.
