The end of an era in Kansas high school sports coaching is just about to end.
It’s been one of the most successful eras in coaching in any sport. And it all began more than 30 years ago.
Baldwin High School coach Mike Spielman is set to retire from teaching and coaching when the 2024 track and field season ends this weekend. Spielman has won more team state championships than many school across the state.
During his 32 years at Baldwin, Spielman coached 25 state championship cross country teams. His resume also includes three boys track and field state titles, bringing his state championship total to 28.
What’s arguably even crazier is his Baldwin cross country teams have brought home an additional 19 state trophies from second- or third-place finishes. All of the Bulldogs trophies came in Class 4A.
“That’s what is wild is when you look at the number,” Spielman said. “Some teams just go crazy to try and win a trophy. Then, we’re just going to do that every year, but you don’t think about it that year because you’re in doing your thing.”
Baldwin last won a cross country state title in 2020. It was the 12th team championship for the BHS girls program, which didn’t win its first title until 2002.
In the past three years, Spielman’s teams have won three trophies. The girls team has finished runner-up the past three years, while the boys squad had placed fifth in 2022 and 2023.
“This year was probably the best regular season team we’ve ever had,” Spielman said. “We won the Blue Division at KU and we won it by 30 or 40 points. We won the Baldwin Invitational and we won the Maple Leaf Invitational at home. We had five girls who ran under 21 and we had two girls that broke 20. Our problem was we just had five studs.”
The Baldwin girls might arguably be the favorite to win the state title in the fall. Spielman isn’t leaving the cupboard empty for Thomas Broxterman, who is stepping into big shoes as the Bulldogs’ next coach.
“I want to go out when things are going kind of good,” Spielman said. “Usually, people are grumpy when they retire because people are on them for stuff or they’ve been in too long. But, I thought this was a good time. And, I have some other things I’m going to work on. One of those is going to be helping Angie’s family do some farming.”
Spielman and his wife, Angie, already have plans once he’s officially retired. They have been making those plans for the last couple of years, but they’ve become a reality since he officially resigned before Christmas.
“We have an early retirement plan, and part of that is you have notify the board before the January board meeting,” Spielman said. “I just did it before Christmas. They pay our health insurance for the next four years as a retirement thing. The reason they do that is it gives them time to find teachers and coaches.”
Humble beginning
Spielman began teaching math at Baldwin in the fall of 1990 after graduating from the University of Kansas, where he ran cross country and track. The Sabetha High School graduate began his coaching career as one of the freshman football coaches at Baldwin.
During Spielman’s first two years in Baldwin, Rick McCaffry resigned as cross country coach after seven years. The opening wasn’t something Spielman jumped at right away.
“It opened up and it was a hard decision,” Spielman said. “I really enjoyed coaching football. It was like I know I need to do this because this is what I had done in high school and college, but it was kind of hard because I really was enjoying the football thing.”
Of course, he ended up taking the job, beginning the fall of 1992. He became the fourth coach in program history.
“I think it was a good decision,” Angie Spielman chimed in.
He took over a program that has just one state qualifier the year before. The Bulldogs had been to state as a team in 1990, and the only one who went back to state in 1991 was sophomore Buzz Lambert. He became an all-state runner, placing 17th overall.
The girls program also sent the team to state in 1990, but had only a single state qualifier in 1991 in sophomore Kasi Wiseman. She finished 38th at state in 1991.
“That first year, we were lucky to put together six or seven runners,” Spielman said. “We had a team. We had maybe 10 or 12 kids out, but maybe had six or seven really good ones.”
In 1992, the Baldwin boys went back to state as a team. The Bulldogs finished sixth – one spot behind their best team finish ever to that point, which was fifth in 1988. The girls team sent one runner to state – freshman Jessica Gillispie.
A year later, Spielman coached both teams to state. It was only the second time both teams qualified for state, but it would become something that happened during most years of Spielman’s tenure.
The girls team finished 11th, but the season sparked the program’s success that came to follow for the next 30 years. The boys made history and won Spielman the first of his 25 cross country state titles. The Bulldogs scored 86 points and beat Effingham by five points for the 1993 championship.
“The year we won state we had a good team out,” Spielman said. “We kind of had eight good ones that year.”
Building on success
The boys team placed third in 1994 and 1996 before a runner-up finish in 1997. The following year sparked a state title streak for the Bulldogs.
They tied Ulysses with 63 points, but Baldwin won the sixth-runner tiebreaker. That title was the first of eight-straight for the Bulldogs. Their streak ended in 2006 when they finished runner-up to El Dorado.
The Baldwin boys won four more championships and finished sixth or better at state every year through 2015. The Bulldogs have only been to state three times since 2015.
Meanwhile, the girls team has remained near the top of the 4A girls standings every year since 1995. They have been to state as a team 29-straight years, bringing home a state trophy 25 of those 29 years.
The girls team nearly won its first title in 1997 when it had three runners in the top 10 at state. However, the Bulldogs finished third in a tight team race.
After a runner-up finish in 2000 and two more third-place finishes, the Baldwin girls made history with the 2002 state title. They dominated the field, scoring 66 points and beating runner-up Wamego by 45 points.
Baldwin won seven of the next nine state titles, losing to Clay Center in 2004 and DeSoto in 2006. Spielman coached 12 girls teams to state titles and eight to runner-up finishes.
“Winning the boys title the second year so a great feeling, and you think this is what it could be because this is what you aim for,” Spielman said. “There are so many schools and so many teams that never get that chance, so you think it’s great. Then you figure out how to get third the next year and third a couple years later. We keep plugging away and then the streak starts. It took the girls a little while to catch up, and then in the middle both teams are pretty good. It was boys at the beginning, both were good in the middle and then girls at the end. There is kind of symmetry to it.”
Spielman said he still remembers the 2016 season and the girls team fourth-place finish. Maize South won the title with 31 points, while Andover Central and Towanda placed second and third. Baldwin placed fourth – its lowest finish since a seventh-place run in 1999.
“I remember riding home and thinking this is one of the only years there hasn’t been a trophy in the front seat,” Spielman said. “We brought at least one trophy home every year for a long time. That was one of those freak years where we were OK and some years we would have been good enough to maybe win it. But Maize South had came in and they were 4A then jumped to 5A and they had one small class so they came back down to 4A for one more year. They were just loaded so they won it.
“Then there were two other really good teams and we were close to them, but we ended up fourth that year. We had a lot of freshmen kids and it happened to be a really tough year. There were also years where we weren’t really good, but we’d go win state just because it fell the right way,”
Leaving a legacy
Spielman will leave Baldwin as one of the most successful coaches in Kansas history. He coached 44 teams to state trophies – top three at state – and 25 of those won state championships.
Spielman coached 35 all-state girls and 34 all-state boys during his tenure. He also coached dozens of all-state track and field athletes. Spielman’s boys track and field teams won state titles in 2001, 2002 and 2011. He also helped coach six girls track and field teams in 2010, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016.
Before the Baldwin boys won the 1998 state title, BHS had won eight other championships in other sports, but only two of those came after 1982. They were both in 1996 for girls basketball and boys tennis.
Once Spielman’s team began having success on the state level, interest grew and grew until cross country was one of the most popular sports at BHS.
“Interest really began increasing in the late 90s or around 2000, because the boys started winning and the girls started placing at state,” Spielman said. “The track club was going on at that time. Boys track won in 2001 and 2002, so we started getting things there. Angie was coaching at the junior high and we had feeder things going.
“I mean, I remember having some stud JV teams where they would go 1-5 or 1-7 at JV meets. We also 40 or more kids out, and it was before soccer started at the high school. It was cross country and football, and we had some kids who could have played football and would have been really good football players those chose cross country.”
Spielman’s legacy will live on for a very long time in Baldwin. On Sept. 17, 2022, members of the Baldwin Golf Association honored Mike and Angie with a plaque and sign naming the home course the Spielman Cross Country Course.
It was a surprise for both of them, as emotions poured out during the awards ceremony at the Bulldogs’ home meet.
Spielman said the cross country course was created at the Baldwin Golf Course in the late 80s, and it has slightly evolved into what it is now. The BGA now works in conjunction with Spielman and the school district, mowing the grass and taking aerial photos of the course for fans to view at the golf course.
In January, the Spielmans were honored again at BHS. A trophy case was named the Mike and Angie Spielman trophy case with the label “A legacy of excellence” on it. The case was filled with trophies from Spielman’s tenure.
“You don’t stop and think about those things,” Spielman said. “They were both surprises, and they both came out of the blue. But, what I have enjoyed the most out of the whole time is the relationship between cross country and the golf course and the golf association. I can remember when I first started, going out there and really feeling like we shouldn’t even be out here and maybe even getting a bit of flack about being out there. Now, it’s they’ll say we’ll get out of your way. It’s this total different mindset. That’s the thing that whole time has been really neat.”