Hey everyone,

I just received the following comment on my post over at Black Shoe Diaries, and thought it was so insightful that I had to share it in a followup blast to my post Welcome Aboard Chris Baker.

This is Chris Baker's high school football coach (and history teacher) responding to my question about Chris's issues at Penn State. Note that he talked with Chris just last night about joining Denver's D:

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Chris Baker at Penn State

I was the Defensive Coordinator for Chris at Windsor (CT) H.S. in 2003 and 2004. Chris is a fine student athlete, I also taught him in History class. Basically at PSU he was accused of being in 2 on campus fights. I think enough of Chris that I wrote a character letter on his behalf. However, due to the expenses of the legal process, Chris pled guilty to misdemeanors with the understanding that he would be able to continue his career at PSU--however once all the sht hit the fan (ESPN doing report on PSU supposedly being out of control last summer on OUtside the Lines)--Paterno responded by kicking 2 players off the team, one being Chris. I felt that Chris was treated unfairly, however he thrived at Hampton.

I really believe that the charges against Chris were against the character that I had grown to appreciate while having him as a player and student.

i spoke to him last night and he is fired up to start with a clean slate. He is a FREAK of an athlete and I think will make people in Denver very happy for years to come.

by coachcohen

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Clearly, he felt it was important for us Bronco fans to have an accurate picture of a player he cares about very much as an athlete, student, and person.

This is about as good a testimonial as you could hope for, under the circumstances. There's still a lot of work to be done, but personally I'm going to be rooting very hard for this kid to become our long term answer at NT.