National Football Foundation

Terry Baker became a revered legend in the Pacific Northwest. The Oregon State quarterback won the Heisman Trophy his senior year – the only player from the Northwest to win the award until 2014. He holds the distinction of being the only athlete to win the Heisman Trophy, Maxwell Award and Sports Illustrated's Sportsman of the Year Award in the same year. A star on the basketball team, he also remains the only athlete to both win the Heisman and play in the NCAA Final Four.

The 6-foot-3 and 196 pound star broke all the Pacific Coast scoring records, He twice earned All-Northwest Conference honors, and he won 14 Player of the Year Awards in addition to being named to 12 All-America teams. He still holds an NCAA record for his 99-yard touchdown run against Villanova in the 1962 Liberty Bowl (the game’s only touchdown).

A mechanical engineering major with a B+ average, Baker earned a spot in two honor societies on campus. He was the president of his fraternity, Phi Delta Theta, and he was honored his senior year as “Phi Delt of the Year.”

The first pick in the NFL Draft by the Los Angeles Rams, he stayed with the organization for three years before moving to the Canadian Football League to play for the Edmonton Eskimos. During his time with the Eskimos, Baker attended the University of Southern California Law School where he obtained his J.D. in just three and a half years. The Heisman winner returned to his home state of Oregon, and he became the founding partner of his own firm Tonkon Torp.

In 1982, Baker was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame. The quarterback has also been inducted into the State of Oregon Sports, Oregon State University Sports and National High School Athletics Halls of Fame. In 1999, The Oregonian named him one of the state’s top five athletes of the century. To this day, Bakers jersey (No. 11) is the only jersey retired at Oregon State. Baker was inducted into the State of Oregon Sports Hall of Fame in 1980, the College Football Hall of Fame in 1982 and the Oregon State University Sports Hall of Fame in 1988. Baker retired from law and resides in Portland with his wife Barbara.