Charles A. Baird

Who was Charles A. Baird?

Charles A. Baird was an American football manager, university athletic director, and banker.

He was the manager of the University of Michigan football team from 1893 to 1895 and the school's first athletic director from 1898 to 1909. During his time as Michigan's athletic director, he was responsible for the hiring of Coach Fielding H. Yost and the construction of Ferry Field, the largest college athletic grounds in the United States at that time. Michigan teams excelled in all fields of athletics during Baird's tenure at Michigan, including football and track. Michigan's track teams won six Western Conference team championships and 16 Olympic medals during Baird's eleven years as athletic director. Baird also presided over Michigan athletics for the school's first Western Conference football championship in 1898 and Yost's "point-a-minute" teams from 1901 to 1905. His business acumen has been credited with turning Michigan's athletic department into a major success and a model for other universities in the early 20th Century.

Baird became embroiled in controversy in 1905 when Stanford University President David Starr Jordan published allegations that "the firm of Yost & Baird, victory-makers," were engaged in "professionalism" at Michigan. Baird was also a central player in the 1907 withdrawal of the University of Michigan from the Western Conference in protest over strict regulations imposed by conference faculty, including a reduction in the football season to five games and a fifty cent limit on ticket prices.