Barbara Bakker (1998) - Hall of Fame

Barbara Bakker

Induction:
1998
Class:
1974

Coaches and athletes both have goals of winning a state championship and few have won more than the Dike-New Hartford varsity women's volleyball team.

Coach Barbara Bakker started the Dike volleyball program in 1979 and Dike merged with New Hartford in 1992. Since then, she won the State Class 1A Championship in 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1994, and 1996, compiling more than 700 career match victories.

She has been sought after as a clinician and speaker, including the 1985 Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union volleyball clinic. From 1985-1988, she served on the IGHSAU Volleyball Advisory Board. In 1986, she was the IGHSAU Summer Coaching School Speaker and All-Star Coach. She served from 1986-88 on the Iowa Athletic Conference Association Volleyball Advisory Committee. Three times she was recognized by the Iowa Athletic Coaches Association as Volleyball Coach of the Year. Bakker's devotion to her athletes reached the spotlight again in 1997 when she was named Iowa Class 1A Volleyball Coach of the Year.

Respected by her peers, she has given numerous talks, including serving as clinician at Episcopal All-Star Camp in Baton Rouge, La.; in 1989, organizing the first IACA/Mizuno All-Star Banquet, Clinic & Match, as well as being an IACA/Mizuno All-Star Coach and Speaker in 1989; and in 1991, she was a speaker on goal-setting at UNI's volleyball camp. In 1994, she again spoke at the IACA/Mizuno All-Star Clinic and received an invitation to be a presenter on goal-setting at the National Athletic Coaches Convention in Des Moines.

Along with being a successful coach, she is a respected educator. She has given numerous talks in her role as a health educator. Baker is a 1970 Springville (Iowa) High School graduate. She received her B.A. in physical education from UNI in 1974 and played basketball for the Panthers. She later came back to get her M.A. in health education in 1995, with an emphasis toward school health.