At this time two years ago, power five football coaches couldn’t find Killeen Shoemaker (TX) wide receiver, Monaray Baldwin. Maybe more accurately, they didn’t want to find Monaray Baldwin.
It’s funny how some things don’t change, as now the guys those coaches did recruit can’t find Monaray Baldwin either. He’s already past them.
The first thing most coaches and fans see when Baldwin steps onto the football field is his small frame. At 5’9” and 164 pounds, he stands out in the wrong kind of way when he lines up across from Division I, major conference opponents. Because of his stature, recruiters and coaches told Baldwin he was too small to play major college football, a kind of doubt he always keeps in the back of his mind.
“He goes out to prove people wrong,” Baldwin’s father, Avion Sherman said. “If somebody tells him he can’t do it, he’s going to do it, and he is going to be the best at it.”
The second thing people notice is his speed, something that has been his not-so-secret weapon since he first stepped on the Pop Warner fields of Fort Knox, Kentucky as a seven-year-old.
“I would think to myself ‘are other kids this fast?’” Baldwin’s mother, Mandy Sherman, says with a chuckle. “His speed at such a young age was just crazy.”
Baldwin as a youth football player in Fort Knox, KY.
While Baldwin’s spectacular plays in a Baylor uniform are all dead sprints, his journey to the Bears was anything but.
Growing up just an hour south of Waco in Killeen, Texas, Baldwin was the star at Shoemaker High School and revived a football program on life support. The Grey Wolves combined to win just four games in Baldwin’s first two seasons, before he turned in two first-team all-district campaigns, capped off with a district co-MVP and Shoemaker’s best-ever finish his senior year in 2020 when he caught 40 passes for 756 yards and 10 touchdowns.
He was the man in Killeen, but even as he put up video game numbers, his mailbox was still beckoning for Division I offers. What should have been an exciting recruiting process was beginning to wear on Baldwin during his stellar senior season, eventually leading him to give a verbal commitment to the University of Incarnate Word, an FCS program in San Antonio.
“He was discouraged because he was the star at Shoemaker,” Sherman said. “I could just feel he wasn’t satisfied with Incarnate Word.”
Baldwin with family mom Mandy, dad Avion and siblings after a Shoemaker game in 2019.
Yet, Incarnate Word was where Baldwin was headed. That is, until November 30, 2020, when most seniors are wrapping up their high school careers and have been set in their commitments for months, Baldwin got an unexpected phone call. That call led to the text heard ‘round Killeen, a text so momentous in its meaning for a player, a family, and a re-building program.
The two-word text to Mandy Sherman read: “Baylor offered.”
“Probably the whole city of Killeen must have heard me screaming,” Sherman said. “That’s the best text I have ever received in my whole life.”
Baldwin was about to realize a dream of playing major college football for his hometown team. Although he craved the stage, he was not satisfied with just taking part.
Baldwin and family after a 2021 game at McLane Stadium
11 months later after a thrilling, come-from-behind 31-24 victory over the Texas Longhorns at McLane Stadium last October, the Baylor Bears and their entire fan base were beaming. All except true freshman wide receiver Monaray Baldwin, who failed to even register a stat, something that was, unfortunately, becoming a habit, but one he had a hard time adjusting to after being a star at Killeen’s Shoemaker High School, about an hour from Baylor’s campus.
His mother told him to just be patient.
“Your time will come,” Sherman told her son.
63 days after that victory over Texas, in the fourth quarter of the Sugar Bowl, every Baylor (and Ole Miss, for that matter) fan in America was screaming Baldwin’s name…once they looked it up on the roster.
With the game tied at 7 in a defensive slugfest, the Bears tried desperately for a breakout play, knowing their normal R.V.O. (Reliable, Violent Offense) might not get them to their 12th victory of the season, what would be a program record, and their first New Year’s 6 Bowl win. Instead of running a jet sweep with graduate transfer slot receiver Drew Estrada, as they had with that particular play all year, they handed off to the seldom-used Baldwin.
“I just looked up on the Jumbotron and said ‘oh, Monaray is in,’” Avion Sherman said. “[Mandy] couldn’t even get her camera set up and he was gone.”
Baldwin took the ball, took his opportunity with it, and ran with it. 48 yards to the end zone.
Out of nowhere, his time had come.
It was complete madness. The camera didn’t know where he was, the fans didn’t know who he was, even ESPN’s graphic said Estrada scored, and one mom in the stands had no idea what to think.
“That moment is a blur,” Mandy Sherman said “I still get choked up thinking about it, it was a dream, I thought: those other schools must be doubting themselves now!”
ESPN play-by-play crooner Joe Tessitore saw it from the jump, exclaiming “Baldwin breaks free!” Baldwin wasn’t just breaking free from the Rebel defense, but also from all the angst and the anger and the self-doubt from his recruiting journey to his near red shirt to his stateless game against Texas. It was all freed with one of the biggest plays in Baylor football history.
Baldwin’s parents say they guess they have watched the touchdown video a thousand times since January. It was a special moment for them, but Baldwin saw it as only the beginning.
In fact, he’s kind of sick of talking about the play.
“I don’t really like when people talk about it because it’s just one play,” Baldwin said before the season. “I know a few people in the stands know my name now, but it doesn’t really change anything.”
If he had been satisfied with being a great high school player, he wouldn’t be playing at the highest level of college football. If he had been satisfied with Incarnate Word, he wouldn’t have scored the game-winning touchdown in the Sugar Bowl. And If he had been satisfied with that one play, well, he wouldn’t be Monaray Baldwin.
Instead, Baldwin has taken his game up a notch in 2022. In basically only two games (he had just a single target against Iowa State after returning from an injury that kept him out two games), Baldwin leads the team in receptions with 13, receiving yards with 261, and receiving touchdowns with three.
On a wide receiver unit that didn’t return a single starter from 2021, Baldwin has used his burners to emerge as the Bears’ deep threat, with each of his four total touchdowns going for 40 yards or more. In Baylor’s last game, Baldwin torched No. 8 Oklahoma State to the tune of seven catches for 174 yards and two touchdowns, highlighted by a 70-yard scamper on 4th and 5 to get the Bears within a score, running past half the Cowboys defense to the end zone.
His skill set is such an advantage for the Bears, the coaching staff is trying to form their offense around him.
“We’re making what we do, what he does,” coach Dave Aranda said in September. “We are kind of creating a spot as it goes.”
Baldwin has gotten touches this year in the backfield, in the slot, and split out wide. No matter where you put him, his confidence doesn’t change.
Based on his performance this year, there’s something else that hasn’t changed for Baldwin.
When Baylor gave him a big “8” and “0” to put on his wall to show off his jersey number 80, Baldwin’s mother was perplexed to see he only hung up the 0, leaving the 8 out of sight.
Baldwin’s bedroom donning the 0, but not the 8, for good reason.
When she asked him about it, he told her “zero? Because that’s how many people can guard me.”
Baldwin’s journey looks like a sprint, but the marathon of outside doubt, proving people wrong, and writing his name in Baylor Bears football lure is far from over.
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