Summer not just for football

Former Costa Mesa High football coach Tom Baldwin admittedly didn’t know how to spend his summers.

Last year was the first time in nearly a half-century he’d had a real summer vacation.

“I coached football for 47 years,” Tom Baldwin said. “I always thought you were supposed to coach football during the summer.”

But after retiring from coaching football following his second Mustangs head coaching tenure in 2004, Baldwin, now 74, had time on his hands.

Although it must have been tough for the longtime head coach, he left it to his wife, Carol, to do the planning.

“I was excited to do it,” Carol Baldwin said. “I’ve probably attended more football games than anyone else I know besides my husband.”

The couple celebrated their 50-year wedding anniversary with a two-week Mediterranean cruise last summer.

This year, they packed up the car and drove around the United States on a five-week trip, visiting national parks and Carol’s hometown of Newton, Ill.

“It’s always my idea,” Carol Baldwin said. “I’m the traveler. I love to travel, and now he’s starting to enjoy traveling, too.”

Tom Baldwin said the wedding anniversary cruise was fun, if a bit confusing at first.

“The cruise ship was like a city,” he said. “It had 21 elevators. I was lost the first three days. I couldn’t find my room.”

The ship started in Rome and went to locales like Venice, Sicily and Florence in Italy, also traveling to Croatia and Barcelona, Spain.

“We had a wonderful time,” Tom Baldwin said. “It was just a fantastic vacation.”

This year, the couple decided to stay in the United States, using much of the summertime to visit friends.

“My wife had always returned home to Illinois, but it was during football season so I couldn’t go,” Tom Baldwin said.

Newton, Ill., is home to just more than 3,000 people — less than 1% of the population of Santa Ana, where the Baldwins live.

“Eighteen of the people she went to high school with met us at a bowling alley,” Tom Baldwin said. “It was a fun time.”

The Baldwins went to Wisconsin, where they visited the Circus World Museum in Baraboo, original home to the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus.

They then traveled to South Dakota, visiting Mount Rushmore, before heading back west to Yellowstone National Park and the Grand Tetons.

“We had a close encounter with a buffalo at Yellowstone, and it almost got into our car,” Tom Baldwin said. “That was pretty wild.”

Carol Baldwin said she was just glad to be able to take the trip.

“We usually try to take a couple of weeks someplace, but this year was our first big adventure,” she said. “It’s always wonderful to see our great country. We have so much beauty right here at home.”

Tom Baldwin, a self-professed “city guy,” couldn’t resist the opportunity for a joke.

“I found out all about what big corn farms are like,” he said, laughing.

Baldwin added that he appreciated the rest. He has been coaching football ever since graduating from Long Beach State in the 1950s, staying on at the program as an assistant coach.

Baldwin was head coach at Santa Ana High from 1965-74, leaving for an assistant coaching job for the World Football League’s Southern California Sun.

Baldwin was also director of player personnel for the Sun, based in Anaheim, but the WFL shut down in 1975 after just two seasons.

“It was a pretty good league,” Baldwin said. “We played at places like Soldier Field in Chicago, and the Gator Bowl in Florida.” It was a good experience.”

After that, Baldwin was head coach at Santa Ana Valley High for three seasons before coming to Costa Mesa High in 1984.

Baldwin was the head coach of the Mustangs from that season through 1991, then stayed busy as an assistant coach.

Baldwin took the Costa Mesa head coaching job for one year in 2004, following the preseason firing of Dave Perkins. But he decided to call it quits after a 2-8 season.

This year, he said he has been to one practice. He is coaching the Mustangs girls’ golf team this fall.

“I don’t think I’ll get too close to the football team,” said Baldwin, who still teaches advanced placement economics at Costa Mesa. “I decided that for at least one more year, I’ll stay away.”

He’s never lost his love for football, but the summer vacations just wouldn’t be the same.