COACH WITH LOCAL TIES — George Baker coaches a drill during a practice at Liberty High School in Las Vegas. Baker, a Mingo High School graduate, has been coaching in Nevada since 2005 after a local career at Mingo and Buckeye Local. One of his former players at Liberty, Troy Fautanu, was selected by the Steelers in the NFL Draft. – Contributed

Back in April when the Steelers selected Washington offensive linemen Troy Fautanu, Ohio Valley football fans might not have realized there was a local connection other than the highly-touted prospect being set to dawn the jersey of their favorite team.

That connection is very real, however, and it goes back to when Fautanu was still a recruit in high school in Las Vegas.

After making the switch to the O-line earlier in his high school career, Fautanu, a prospect with Division I offers, had a new offensive line coach for his senior season at Liberty High — Mingo High School graduate and former local coach George Baker.

Baker, who played at Mingo, graduated from the former school that is now part of Indian Creek’s school district in 1989 and had a 10-year stint as an assistant coach and teacher at Buckeye Local, has been coaching in Nevada since 2005 and joined the staff at Liberty.

“It’s been an interesting career out here in Nevada,” Baker said. “I’ve had a lot of opportunities out here. There’s a lot of good football in Nevada, but it’s still not the same as Ohio Valley football.”

That experience growing up around football in the Ohio Valley is what he credits for his desire to be a coach, a journey that began in 1991.

“It definitely is,” Baker said. “I played at Mingo, then when I was in college, coach (Joe) Dunlevy was the junior high football coach at Mingo — I was a little too small to play in college but wanted to stay around football, and he said, ‘well, come help coach junior high football with me.”

After his stints in Mingo and Rayland, he moved out west, coaching in the Las Vegas and Reno areas of Nevada in a host of different roles, including as a head coach.

It was when the former Mingo center went back to coaching the position still important to him that he got to work with the future Steeler.

“I got an opportunity to go to Liberty as an O-line coach,” he said. “I had been a head coach and a coordinator at different schools, but the O-line had always been near and dear to my heart. I played center, it’s what I coached at Buckeye for 10 years. I branched out and did other things when I got the chance to come out here, but it was always something that was important to me.

“When I got to come to Liberty and get started as the O-line coach, I went to meet the players and stuff and head coach Rich Muraco told me we had two guys that had Division I offers I was going to be coaching, and one of them was Troy.

“It was the first time in my career that I had coached guys with major D1 offers. At Buckeye Local we had guys go to smaller colleges and things like that, out here we had some guys Southern Utah and Northern Arizona, schools about YSU’s size.”

It didn’t take long to know why Fautanu had those offers.

“It was evident on Day 1 he was special,” Baker said. “His demeanor and how he handled himself, the potential he had, it was just a ‘wow’ moment. What really struck me was his love of the game.”

Seeing him go on to have the career he did with the Huskies and be a first-round pick, Baker said, is “surreal.”

“It’s absolutely surreal, to know this young man and to have gotten to know him and work with him and to see him get drafted is incredible,” Baker said. “I only worked with him one year, but when you’re an O-line coach … it’s a lot of getting to know the person. Troy is great at what he did, he was one of those guys that brought a lot of energy to the game. A lot of coaching Troy was getting to know the person and the football player and not just football technique.

“My wife taught in the school and had Troy and Troy’s sister in class, we got to know the family pretty well. Seeing him get drafted was just unbelievable.”

Baker took the mentality learned here West with him, and ultimately applied that to Fautanu in their season together — a mentality he feels will serve him well with the Steelers and make him a fan favorite.

“He’s very hard-working,” Baker said. “I am an Ohio Valley football guy and I push players out here ways they haven’t been pushed, I still have that Mingo attitude, Steel Valley get after it kind of attitude and I try to bring that to my players. Troy embraced that when I came to Liberty.

“I grew up a Steelers fan, my mom was a big Steelers fan and I had all the gear … I eventually became a 49ers fan but I know what Steeler Nation is all about and how important it is to people back in the Valley. To see Troy go to that, I think he’s going to fit right in perfectly. Pittsburgh is the perfect spot for him.”

Baker now owns some Steelers merch once again.

“I’ve never owned an NFL jersey, I’ve just never been a jersey guy, but I always said if a player I coached ever got drafted, I would get a jersey with their name on it,” Baker said. “Sure enough, the week after the draft I was on NFL.com ordering my Steelers No. 76 Fautanu jersey.”

Baker, though, didn’t get to see his former player’s name called live — he was coaching.

“We have spring football out here,” he said. “I was at spring ball coaching and my phone started blowing up with messages from people back in the Valley. ‘Your boy is coming to Pittsburgh!’ They were all excited about it. I had posted on social media to look for him in the draft and all my friends and family back home that are Steelers fans were really excited.”

The other Division I recruit he mentioned from that team at Liberty? Well, that one is also a familiar name to football fans in the area as it’s WVU’s Brandon Yates.

There is also an indirect Steelers connection with Yates as well, as he is moving to center this season as a senior to replace Zach Frazier, the Steelers’ second round pick from the Mountaineers taken in the same draft as Fautanu.

“Brandon probably could have gone in the draft this year but decided to come back and have one more year, he’ll probably be in the draft next year,” Baker said. “It’s funny how it worked out. Brandon is originally from Maryland and has been a WVU fan his whole life. It’s a good fit for him there.

“I guess I kind of sent a couple of guys back home,” Baker added with a chuckle.

He sure did.