For the Canadian football player of the same name see Terry Baker (Canadian football).

Terry Wayne Baker (born May 5, 1941) is a former quarterback for the Oregon State University football team. He played for them through the 1960-1962 seasons. He is most notable for winning the 1962 Heisman Trophy and playing the Final Four in the NCAA Basketball Tournament in the same school year. To date, he is the only person to have both won a Heisman Trophy and played in the Final Four.^[1]

Baker was born May 5, 1941 in Pine River, Minnesota. He attended Jefferson High School in Portland, Oregon and was a standout three-sport athlete for the Democrats.

Baker was a three-year letterwinner in basketball, and led the Democrats to the Portland Interscholastic League city championship his senior year.

Baker was also a great baseball player. He earned a letter all four years of high school in baseball and led his team to the 1959 Oregon School Activities Association state championship.

Football, however, was Baker's most dominant sport. Baker played quarterback and tailback for the Democrats. In his junior and senior seasons, the Democrats were 23-0 and won two Oregon State Athletic Association state championships. As a senior, he threw for 1,261 yards and ran for 438 yards.

Baker played as a point guard on the Oregon State basketball team. Baker also chose to play football after coming to Oregon State. He played football for Oregon State from 1960 through 1962. During that season, he threw for 3,476 yards and 23 touchdowns. He also ran for 1503 yards and 15 touchdowns.

Baker earned a B.Sc. in mechanical engineering at OSU in 1963.

Heisman Trophy[link]

On November 27, 1962, it was announced that Baker was the winner of the Heisman Trophy for his achievements during the 1962 season. He was the first person to win the Heisman Trophy west of Texas and the only player ever to win from the Pacific Northwest. In addition to winning the Heisman in 1962, he also won the Maxwell Award and the W.J. Voit Memorial Trophy, was a consensus first team All-American, was named the Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year, was a Helms Foundation Award recipient, and was the winner of 14 player of the year awards, including the AP, UPI, and The Sporting News. He was also part of the All-Star team in the 1963 College All-Star Game, the last time the All-Star team would ever defeat the reigning NFL champions.

Professional career[link]

After graduation, Baker entered the 1963 NFL Draft and was the first overall pick, by the Los Angeles Rams.^[2][3] Baker played with the Rams for 3 seasons, and later played for the Edmonton Eskimos of the CFL while earning a J.D. at the University of Southern California Law School.

Legacy[link]

Baker was inducted into the State of Oregon Sports Hall of Fame in 1980, the College Football Hall of Fame in 1982, and the Oregon State University Sports Hall of Fame in 1988. Oregon State has retired his #11 football jersey.

Baker's 99-yard run against Villanova in the Liberty Bowl remains an NCAA record, and because the ball can never start from the goal line, the record can never be broken, only tied. He is currently a retired lawyer living in Portland, Oregon.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Terry Baker at the College Football Hall of Fame
• Terry Baker at the Heisman Trophy

Kirk Dwayne Franklin (born (1970-01-26)January 26, 1970) is an American Gospel music musician, choir director, and author, and is most notably known for leading urban contemporary gospel choirs such as The Family, God's Property and One Nation Crew (1NC).

Early years[link]

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A native of Fort Worth, Texas, Franklin was raised by his grandmother, Gertrude, having been abandoned as a baby by his mother.^{[1][dead link]} Gertrude collected and resold aluminum cans to raise money for Kirk to take piano lessons from the age of four. Kirk excelled in music, being able to read and write music, while also play by ear.

He received his first contract offer at the age of seven, which his aunt turned down.^[1] He joined the church choir and became music director of the Mt. Rose Baptist Church adult choir at the age of eleven.

Despite his strict religious upbringing, Franklin rebelled in his teenage years, and in an attempt to keep him out of trouble, his grandmother arranged an audition for him at a professional youth conservatory associated with a local university. He was accepted and, while his life seemed to be on track for a while, the announcement of a girlfriend's pregnancy and his eventual expulsion from school for behavioral problems proved otherwise.

After the shooting death of a friend,^[2] Franklin returned to the church, where he began to direct the choir once again. He also co-founded a gospel group, The Humble Hearts, which recorded one of Franklin's compositions and got the attention of gospel music legend Milton Biggham. Impressed, Biggham enlisted him to lead the DFW Mass Choir in a recording of Franklin's song "Every Day with Jesus." This led to Biggham hiring Franklin, just 20 years old at the time, to lead the choir at the 1990 Gospel Music Workshop of America Convention, a major industry gathering.^[1]

Professional background[link]

Kirk Franklin & The Family (1990s–2000)[link]

In 1992, Franklin organized "The Family", which is a seventeen-voice choir, formed from neighborhood friends and associates. In 1992, Vicki Mack-Lataillade, the co-founder of fledgling record label GospoCentric, heard one of their demo tapes and was so impressed she immediately signed up Kirk & The Family to a recording contract.

In 1993, the group, now known as "Kirk Franklin & The Family," released their debut album, Kirk Franklin & The Family. It spent almost two years on the Gospel music charts and charted on the R&B charts, eventually earning platinum sales status. It remained at No. 1 on the Billboard Top Gospel Albums chart for 42 weeks. It was the first gospel music album to sell over a million units.

Two years later, after releasing a 1994 Christmas album entitled Kirk Franklin & the Family Christmas, the group released Whatcha Lookin' 4 in 1995. The album was certified 2x platinum and earned Franklin his first Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Soul Gospel Album. 1997 brought another album, a collaboration with the vocal ensemble God's Property, aptly named God's Property from Kirk Franklin's Nu Nation. The lead single, "Stomp", featuring Cheryl "Salt" James (of Salt-N-Pepa), was a huge hit, enjoying heavy rotation on MTV and other music channels, and charting at No. 1 on the R&B Singles Airplay chart for 2 weeks, even making it in to the Top 40. God's Property from Kirk Franklin's Nu Nation was No. 1 on the R&B Albums chart for 5 weeks, No. 3 on the Pop charts, and would go on to be certified 3x platinum. It also brought Franklin another Grammy for Best Contemporary Soul Gospel Album, as well as three Grammy nominations.

In 1996, Franklin’s song "Joy" was recorded by Whitney Houston and the Georgia Mass Choir. With production by Houston and Mervyn Warren, the composition was included on the best-selling soundtrack to the movie The Preacher's Wife.

On November 2, 1998, God's Property sued Franklin. The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleges that Franklin induced God's Property founder Linda Searight into signing an "onerous and one-sided" contract with B-Rite Music.^[3]

The Nu Nation Project was released in 1998.^[4] The first single, an interpretation of the Bill Withers song "Lean on Me" and produced by Franklin and pop producer Dan Shea, controversially featured several mainstream artists, including R. Kelly, Mary J. Blige and Bono of U2. Together with Crystal Lewis, and the Family, "Lean On Me" and the second single "Revolution" (featuring Rodney Jerkins) were considerable hits, and the album contained a version of another Withers song "Gonna Be a Lovely Day". The Nu Nation Project went on to top the Billboard Contemporary Christian Albums chart for 23 weeks and the Billboard Gospel Albums chart for 49 weeks, and brought Franklin his third Grammy.

In, 2000, The Family filed a multi-million dollar lawsuit for royalties for their work on The Nu Nation Project against Franklin and GospoCentric Records.^[5] This saw the end of the "Kirk Franklin & The Family" records, as Kirk went on to become a solo artist, except for his CD Kirk Franklin presents 1NC, which he did in collaboration with One Nation Crew, and was released that same year.

On January 16, 2010 at the 25th Annual Stellar Awards show taping, in Nashville, Tennessee, Kirk Franklin & The Family reunited briefly on stage to perform songs made popular by them in the 1990s.

Solo artist (2000–present)[link]

In 2001, Franklin ventured into new territory, scoring and producing the soundtrack for the film Kingdom Come. The soundtrack featured gospel artists Mary Mary, Crystal Lewis, and 1NC, as well as secular artists Az Yet, Jill Scott, Shawn Stockman of Boyz II Men and others. A notable song from the soundtrack was "Thank You" (Kirk Franklin feat Mary Mary).