This Wichita star quit football. How magic of fatherhood spurred comeback at Friends

It wasn’t that long ago when K’Vonte’ Baker thought his football career was over.

Once the greatest showman in the City League with the pigskin in his hands, Baker seemingly disappeared following an electric career at Heights.

He appeared in five games at Ellsworth Community College in 2019, then four years passed before Baker emerged as the quarterback at Friends University, where he was named the KCAC Player of the Year after leading the NAIA in rushing touchdowns and guiding the Falcons to a 9-2 record and their first winning season in a decade.

In his second year back, the 24-year-old Wichita native has Friends off to a 4-0 start and a No. 21 national ranking entering Saturday’s game at Tabor.

So where did Baker go? And what led to his football revival?

“The day my daughter was born,” Baker said, “my whole life changed.”

‘I wanted her to see me do something that I love’

Football players are accustomed to physical aches and pains throughout the week.

But the type of pain following a severe concussion suffered halfway through his first season of college football was nothing like Baker had ever experienced.

Even after being treated, he dealt with constant headaches. Some days he couldn’t see straight when he got out of bed in the morning.

Not only did the concussion derail his debut year at Ellsworth Community College in Iowa, it also led to him returning to Wichita, dropping out of school and quitting football.

“Honestly, I thought I was done,” Baker said. “I just wasn’t feeling football like that anymore.”

For as long as he could remember, Baker’s self-worth had derived from the special things he could do on a football field. Without football, Baker was lost. He started working a blue-collar job after the pandemic and gained 50 pounds from his playing weight.

He found new meaning in February 2021 when his daughter, A’velia, was born.

“She is the best thing that has happened to me in my life,” Baker said. “I love everything about being a father. I love waking up every morning and seeing her smile and hearing her laugh. I didn’t know I would feel that way until it happened, but now, she is what gets me through the day.”

Baker, who was 20 at the time, was still the “baby” of the family to Paishus Williams, who raised him as a single mother. She feared he was too young to become a parent, but those concerns were quickly put to rest by the way her son embraced fatherhood.

“I wasn’t ready for him to become a parent yet,” Williams said. “But he’s so good with his daughter and I expected that out of him anyways. That is his mini-me, his best friend. They really are inseparable. Having a child changed him.”

That changed worldview is what ultimately brought Baker back to football.

More than two years after Baker had taken his last snap, his former high school football coach, Terry Harrison, called him that December. The coach had just been hired to rebuild a dormant Friends University football team and Harrison wanted Baker to be the quarterback to turn the program around.

Without seeing any tape on Baker in years or knowing what kind of shape he was in, Harrison trusted his instincts.

“Because I know his heart,” Harrison said. “K’Vonte’ was a program-changer for us at Heights and I’ve seen him grow up since he was 14 years old. I knew what kind of a person he was, what kind of a teammate he was, so to me, it felt like a no-brainer.”

Baker was hesitant at first, but Harrison remained in dogged pursuit. After giving the idea more thought, Baker committed to a comeback — just before his daughter’s second birthday.

The very next day, Baker took a long, hot shower and then went for a run around his neighborhood. He started lifting weights again and it didn’t take long for him to shed pounds.

The comeback was on.

“The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to do something to make my daughter proud,” Baker said. “That’s what brought back that love for football again. I realized I wanted her to see me do something that I love.”

‘Meet me in the end zone’

In his first varsity start as a high school sophomore in 2016, Baker scored a 70-yard touchdown that Harrison still can’t believe.

It was a broken play where Baker ran a speed option and was immediately met in the backfield by a lineman. He made the first defender miss, which was no surprise, but soon ran out of real estate near the sideline with an entire defense collapsing on him.

With one devastating spin move and one ankle-breaking juke, Baker sped past the pack in the other direction. By the time he crossed the goal line, he had made all 11 defenders miss at least once.

“K’Vonte’ is the most dynamic, explosive player I have ever seen with my own eyes,” Harrison said. “Until you see him live and in person, it’s hard to explain.”

Many football players could train their whole lives and still not manage to be as elusive as Baker. He works hard at his craft, sure, but possesses an extra level on his elevator with his natural inclination to evade defenders. He doesn’t practice moves — how could you? — rather, he lets his instincts take over with the ball in his hands.

He earned a reputation as a showstopper almost immediately when he started playing in the Wichita Junior Football League.

“I’m like a fan like everybody else,” said Williams, his mother. “I’m in the crowd going, ‘Ahh! Ooo!’ I’m trying to record and I end up recording the ground because I’m going crazy like everybody else. He does something different every time.”

During his ramp-up to joining Friends — he had to redshirt the 2022 season to get his grades in order — the 5-foot-10, left-handed quarterback joined the Wichita Flag Football Association to help stay in shape and have fun playing football again.

Marcus Tuggle, who helps run the league, said the community was excited to see Baker back on a football field again.

“That dude is mad talented, but when you see him in person, he’s real laid-back and just a good dude,” Tuggle said. “He doesn’t want the spotlight. He doesn’t want to be in front of the camera, but if you put that camera on him on the football field, man, he’s going to give you a highlight reel.”

That humble nature wasn’t an act. According to his teammates on Friends, Baker was the same person when he was redshirting as he was last year when he rushed for 1,268 yards and 25 touchdowns. He’s the first to celebrate the success of others and give a high-five to a teammate, which goes a long way in the locker room coming from such a talented player.

“Not all people, but a lot of people who have abilities like him can be big-headed,” said Braden Gordon, an all-conference senior defensive back for Friends. “K’Vonte’ is not like that at all. He’s a real humble guy. Anyone can talk to him. He doesn’t big-time anybody. He’s a people person and is a tremendous athlete and a great teammate.”

That’s why Harrison was more optimistic than ever during his first season in Wichita as the Falcons struggled to a 4-7 record with Baker sitting out as a redshirt. The coach told anyone who would listen that Baker was about to change the program, not just with his ability on the field but with his ability to build a winning culture.

It also helped that Baker’s skill set fits like a glove in Harrison’s flexbone offense. Friends is currently averaging 479.5 rushing yards per game — 180 yards more than any other team in the country — and 8.6 yards per carry with Kel Stroud, Kyree Watkins, Kenyon Vigil, Dalton Phillips and Dyllon Phillips paving the way, while Elias Pino, Nick Cordova, Jett Cheatham, Laken Clowdus, Jud Cheatham and Treylan Gross all average at least 30 rushing yards per game.

To the outside world, it has seemed like Baker has ascended from obscurity to become a star. To Harrison, he always believed this vision would become a reality. And the best part? The 24-year-old Baker still has one more year of college eligibility remaining after this season.

“I guess some people had forgot about K’Vonte’ because it had been a bit since he had played in Wichita,” Harrison said. “They didn’t know what they didn’t know.”

It took Baker exactly one play to announce his return to football.

Before he took the field for the first game of the 2023 season, for his first college football action in nearly four years, Baker had a message to his teammates on the sideline.

“As soon as I get the ball,” Baker said, “meet me in the end zone.”

Fifty-three yards later, Baker was true to his word. His first touch back was a touchdown, the latest in an ever-expanding highlight reel.

‘At the end of the day, it’s all about my daughter’

What Baker has done on the football field has made him the face of a rising powerhouse at Friends, but what he has done away from the sport has made him a role model in Wichita.

Harrison has been around Wichita football for more than a decade now and has noticed a disturbing trend: fewer Wichita natives are receiving scholarships to play college football and even fewer are sticking around for four years to graduate with a degree.

That’s why the coach believes Baker, who had extra work to get back on track with his academics, can be the ultimate success story for future players from Wichita Public Schools with his perseverance and resilience.

“Don’t get me wrong, we are going to love every game he’s playing for us,” Harrison said. “But man, when that young man walks across the stage as a college graduate, that will be a special, special day for me and my family. Football is the greatest game in the world, but it ends for everybody at some point. For him to be on track to get a degree, which will help him the rest of his life, that’s special to see.”

When Baker was growing up, his mother would do her best to encourage him to always stay busy — with sports, with work, with school. Anything to stay out of trouble in the streets.

All these years later, Baker is a college football star, a doting father and is on track to become a college graduate.

“I tried to give him nothing but love and my best because there is some bad stuff happening out here in Wichita,” said Williams, his mother. “I pray and thank God every day that K’Vonte’ has become the man he has become and he never got caught up in any of that type of stuff. He has his priorities straight: his daughter, football and school.”

There are days where Harrison tries to keep perspective on this journey he has been on with Baker for the past 10 years.

He still remembers the diminutive 14-year-old kid who showed so much promise at Heights. That’s what makes moments like this past weekend all the more sweet, as Baker led Friends on a game-winning drive to set up a 40-yard field goal by Cole Thompson to knock off Kansas Wesleyan for the first time since 2014 and secure the program’s first 4-0 start since 2008.

“I kind of hope he sticks around Wichita after he’s done playing because he can be a phenomenal mentor and example to kids here someday,” Harrison said. “Small-town college is hard. Raising a kid is hard. To see him balance all of that, to be motivated by something more than just football, I’ve never been more proud of anybody.”

As far as Baker is concerned, there’s only one person he wants to inspire.

“At the end of the day, it’s all about my daughter,” Baker said. “I felt like if I went back to college and got my degree, one day she will grow up and say, ‘If my dad can go through all of that, I know I can do it too.’”