Springtime is typically a time of great happiness, especially for sports fans and those of us that have to brave the harsh Wisconsin winters.
The weather starts to get nicer, we get to experience the glorious chaos of March Madness, the NHL and NBA playoffs are right around the corner and, best of all, baseball makes its triumphant return, a harbinger of summer in the not-too-distant future.
However, this year is a little different for myself and many others. For the first time that I can remember, spring is bringing something other than pure euphoria.
Professor James Baughman passed away last Saturday at the age of 64 after a brief battle with lung cancer. It was a gut punch to all who knew him, whether it was as a family member, colleague, teacher or friend.
I personally only had the privilege of having him as a professor for half of a semester, but even that was all it took for me to understand quite clearly why he was so revered by those who had him in the past.
Since joining The Daily Cardinal during my freshman year, I have heard ringing endorsements of Professor Baughman from countless coworkers. I honestly don’t think I ever heard a negative word said about him. And even before this semester, I had gotten a small glimpse into what kind of man he was.
My first Baughman experience came during the spring of my freshman year, when he umped the annual Daily Cardinal-Badger Herald softball game. There he was, donning a sweatshirt and hat emblazoned with the logos of his beloved Cleveland Indians, a cup of beer in one hand and a cigar in the other. Just seeing his warm interactions with everyone at Vilas Park that day gave me a good feel for his personality and how much he enjoyed being around students.
Afterward, most of my interactions with him were on the fifth floor of Vilas Hall, my most frequent study spot during my sophomore year. If you spent any significant amount of time on the fifth floor of Vilas Hall on any given weekday, there was a solid chance you would see Professor Baughman. If I happened to be there when he came walking in and I was wearing a sports-themed or Daily Cardinal shirt, he would usually take a playful jab as he strolled past. He didn’t even really know who I was, but he just had that kind of personable nature.
And finally this year, after completing my first semester in the School of Journalism, I was presented with the opportunity to take a class with Professor Baughman. At long last, after hearing so many great things about him, I would get a chance to experience his teaching firsthand. Heck, I passed up a chance to take a course taught by Bud Selig just so I could be put on the wait list for his class. He had that kind of reputation among students and I was that eager to have him.
Given his almost mythic status among journalism students, perhaps it would have been easy to imagine that my expectations for him would be too high. But that wasn’t the case. Professor Baughman was as good (if not better) than advertised.
His extensive knowledge of the subject matter was obvious, but he was always interested in hearing his students’ thoughts on the books we were reading and fostering in-class discussion. His lectures were a perfect blend of teaching and humor, along with occasional references to baseball, the Cleveland Indians and scotch. Whether it was through his unique wit or his impersonations of people like Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan, he was always able to make us laugh without letting class turn into an hour and 15-minute long stand-up routine.
For me, one of the biggest impacts of his class has been helping rekindle a passion for reading books that I hadn’t really experienced since I was in elementary and middle school. Back then, I would often stay up well past my bedtime reading books using the hall light from outside my room until my parents would turn it off when they went up to bed.
However, once I moved into high school and college, reading frequently was something that I unfortunately moved away from. But once I was in Professor Baughman’s literary journalism class this semester, reading was obviously an absolute must if I wanted a halfway decent grade. And as I delved into our assigned books, the darnedest thing happened—I actually found myself intrigued and enjoying reading rather than it being a chore that I tried to just power through. Not only that, but I’ve also started back up reading books in my free time again, and I certainly have Professor Baughman to thank for that.
That’s just a small anecdote on one way in which he impacted me. And judging by the massive amounts of tributes put out on social media following his passing, I’m just one of many people that he impacted in a profound way. Though I unfortunately didn’t get to know him nearly as well as I would have liked to and only got to swing by his office hours a handful of times due to scheduling conflicts, interacting with him one-on-one was always a pleasure.
As any student of his could attest to, Professor Baughman made you feel like his favorite student when you stopped by to talk to him. He was always happy to provide you with what he could — whether it was advice, words of encouragement, sports talk or a few pieces of Pez candy.
And perhaps Professor Baughman’s best quality was his incredible humility. Though he was always impeccably dressed and one of the top journalism historians in the entire country, this man was no snob. He may have held degrees from Harvard and Columbia, but his Ohioan roots were his greatest source of pride.
A column and all the other sentimental tributes might have made him as “mad as a wet hen,” but it speaks volumes to what kind of person he was, and he deserves every last one of them.
To lose him so quickly is part of what makes this so tough. He kept teaching up until he had to go in for treatments and physically couldn’t anymore — a testament to his commitment to his students. Our class learned of his illness in the week prior to spring break. Less than two weeks later, he was gone.
I lost my grandma earlier this winter, which was obviously very tough to go through. While you can never totally prepare yourself for a loss like that, her health had been declining for some time, allowing me to mentally prepare for the inevitable news.
But to lose someone so quickly can cause a whole different kind of visceral impact. Even when Professor Baughman’s voice went hoarse in his final weeks of teaching us, he remained as vibrant and humorous as ever. Everything seemed to happen in a blink of an eye.
He was such a huge presence within the Madison journalism community, which makes the grieving process that much more difficult. Just going to Vilas Hall makes it hard not to think about him for me — I can’t even imagine what it’s like for the students who have had him for multiple classes or the colleagues that worked with him for years. He was essentially the School of Journalism’s elder statesman; it’s hard to think of one without thinking of the other.
Opening Day of the MLB season is nearly here, which will surely conjure up Baughman memories for many people as well. Watching the Cleveland Indians play this year will be tough to do without thinking of his unbridled passion for the team (he even named one of his cats after Grady Sizemore). And this year’s Cardinal-Herald softball game just won’t be quite the same without Professor Baughman behind the plate.
He may be gone, but his influence will live on for years to come.
All we can do now is mourn his passing and share our fond memories of the time we got to share with such a wonderful individual (perhaps over a glass of scotch).
And of course, good people, throwing a little extra support toward the Cleveland Indians this year can’t hurt either.
