St. Michael Football Stadium Shall Remain Nameless

An effort by the St. Michael-Albertville Coaches' Association to have the Middle School West’s athletic stadium named after storied STMA reached a disappointing conclusion to many on Monday evening, when the school board followed a committee recommendation to honor Bauman with a plaque at the stadium, in lieu of naming it after him.

Tensions ran high at the board meeting through the discussion, as board members discussed whether or not to go against the stadium naming committee’s recommendation. The committee formed specifically to determine whether the stadium should be named after Bauman based on a set of nine criteria laid out by the school board.

In the end, while nobody disputed the tremendous accomplishments and contributions of Bauman to the district and the football program, the committee opted to honor his legacy instead with a plaque prominently displayed at the entrance to the stadium. Behle said the plaque would not be paid for without using district dollars.

“They really took this quite seriously, not only in this situation but what it would mean in the future,” said Superintendent Dr. Jim Behle. “This wasn’t limited to a discussion about coach Bauman, by any means.”

Coach Bauman saw the St. Michael-Albertville Knights football team through 31 seasons, helping the district go through considerable changes in his career and played an instrumental role in the effort to construct the sports stadium.

Scott Berning, who spearheaded the effort to name the stadium after the longtime coach, thought it fitting to give out the honor.

“Coach Bauman’s 31 years of dedication to teaching and coaching have affected thousands of young men in the St. Michael and Albertville community," he said. He added Bauman was "instrumental" in building the stadium in the first place.

But the committee would not go beyone the plaque. 

“I think the recommendation does represent a strong consensus of the committee,” said board member Jeff Lindquist, who served as the liaison between the board and the committee.

Not all board members agreed with this decision, however.

“I felt very comfortable naming the stadium after Earl,” board member Gayle Weber told the board. “When I look at our list of criteria, he met every one in my estimation. It’s not likely to be repeated, what Earl has done.”

Because the committee’s conversations were agreed to be confidential, Lindquist would not go into specifics about why this decision was made.

“The committee thought that the board had set the bar extraordinarily high with our criteria, and not all of our criteria were met,” Lindquist said. “I don’t think that reflects poorly on Earl Bauman in any way, shape or form.”

“This is about a positive recognition of an employee’s accomplishments, a lifetime of accomplishments,” added board chair Doug Birk. “And we did consider naming a facility, which was an unprecedented action on the part of the board. The board has never … done anything of this kind of stature for any employee. This is still a very positive, proactive recognition of a person who gave an awful lot to the district and its employees and we don’t want to subtract from that.”

In addition to the plaque, coach Bauman will also be recognized at the Friday Sept. 16 football game vs. Rogers.