Windsor football standout Jackson Baughman headed to Oregon to pursue hockey dream

Sonoma County has produced NFL players, college basketball phenoms and several baseball big leaguers, but what about ice hockey?

Add Jackson Baughman to that list. The former Windsor High School football standout has signed a contract to play junior hockey for the Eugene Generals of the U.S. Premier Hockey League.

Baughman spent most of his hockey career playing for the Santa Rosa Junior Hockey Club and will now head to Oregon.

The Eugene Generals are a Tier 3 junior hockey organization. Their main goal, according to Generals head coach Justin Kern, is to “foster the growth of our kids to higher level of junior hockey, or collegiate hockey.”

There are more than 250 Tier 3 junior hockey leagues in the country. Baughman’s signing with the Generals is no small accomplishment for the Sonoma County native. Jeff Hutchins, coach of the Santa Rosa hockey club, said that only a half-dozen kids went on to play junior hockey in the past 10 years.

Hutchins, who has known Baughman since he was 6, said that if there was one guy to go on and represent Santa Rosa hockey at the next level, it would be Baughman.

“If I could just keep cloning this kid, we would be unstoppable,” Hutchins said.

Baughman rushed for more than 900 yards and scored 17 touchdowns for Windsor last season. Both Kern and Hutchins said Baughman has a running back’s mentality on the ice.

“There will be situations where most kids will try and avoid another player by going around them - Jackson will just go right through them,” Kern said.

Baughman said he uses a lot of things he’s learned from football on the ice, but most important his physicality.

“I can give a hit, but also I can take one,” Baughman said.

Baughman’s football career will be coming to a close for now and he is OK with that, because hockey was always his first love. Baughman said the movie “The Mighty Ducks” fueled his passion for hockey at a young age.

“I really liked that movie and hockey seemed really cool,” Baughman said. “So I asked my dad if I could try it and yeah, now here I am.”

Kern is excited to finally get Baughman in a Generals uniform. Last season, the Generals offered Baughman an invitation to play for them after seeing him work out at one of their camps, but he declined because he already had made the commitment to play football for Windsor.

Kern said Baughman’s decision to go back home and play football showed true leadership.

“We loved that about him. It showed he follows through with his commitments, which is something you don’t always see out of such a young kid,” Kern said.

Now that Baughman has finally signed with the Generals, Kern is excited to have him on the ice and in the locker room as a team leader.

“His attitude, with his ability to skate through kids with no fear, made him a great fit for us,” Kern said. “He’s a ‘yes sir, no sir’ type of guy and we like that.”

The Generals play about 50 games all over the West Coast and even make a few trips east to cities like Boston and Chicago. Baughman will stay with a host family in Eugene and continue his education at Santa Rosa Junior College through online classes. He said he would love the chance to play college hockey after a year of playing with the Generals, but right now he just wants to see how things go.

If you want to catch Baughman in action on the ice, all Generals home games are live-streamed through their website.