2025 Chesterton Athletics Hall of Fame: Bakaitis family

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

Neither Ron “Bucky” Bakaitis nor wife, Vicky, played organized sports at Lew Wallace High School in Gary. But the three children they raised not only played sports, not a one of them failed to be named the outstanding athlete at Chesterton High School’s annual senior awards dinner.
A perfect 3 for 3. Remarkable.
Beth in 1987 and Diane in 1990 were named the outstanding female athlete at their senior awards dinners, and Jeff was honored as the outstanding male athlete in 1993.
During a quick break from working on a printing project at Chesterton High School recently, Bucky reflected on the children’s younger years. The more he talked, the more an image emerged of parents who let their children play, let the coaches coach them, and let it be the kids’ thing, not theirs for the purposes of bragging. They were there to support and to enjoy watching them.
“They were always outside doing something,” Bucky remembered. “Running or whatever it was, anything active. Very seldom did they ever sit in the house. Very seldom. If the weather was bad maybe, but that was it, and if they had to stay inside, they went crazy because they wanted to be outside. And we always played with them. Vicky was always running around chasing them.”
Bucky and Vicky both are retired from teaching, Bucky a computer graphics class, Vicky as a special education teacher. Bucky still works at the high school, taking care of everybody’s printing needs, including projects for the athletic department. He is gaining induction with the children for all he has done for athletics.
Sisters Beth and Diane were standout hurdlers, but it was in gymnastics that they earned their way into the Chesterton Athletics Hall of Fame, which has its induction ceremony this coming Saturday night at dinner at Sand Creek Country Club.
Jeff was a standout running back, safety/linebacker and special teams player in football, the co-MVP of the basketball team as a senior, a sectional champion in the 400 meters and still holds the school record in the long jump (23-6.5).
Although Beth and Diane were raised in the same family and had the same gymnastics coaches, close family friends Mike and Maria Bachuchin, they were quite different as gymnasts, their father said.
“Beth was a superb dancer,” Bucky said. “You could ask anybody who was around then, there was nobody with a dance routine like hers. And Diane was a monkey. She’d be up in the rafters, hanging and swinging. We would go to the park, and she would go right up to the top (of the Jungle Jim.)”
One thing they had in common as gymnasts was winning.
Beth was all-state in three events, a regional champ, and the leading scorer for a state runner-up team.
Diane was the state vault champ in 1990, a four-time all-state selection and two-time DAC MVP.
When it came to learning the finer points of gymnastics, Bucky and Vicky left that to the experts, Mike and Maria Bachuchin, inducted as part of the first Chesterton Athletics Hall of Fame class in 2011. Mike's father suffered a stroke the morning of the dinner, so he and Maria flew back to Pittsburgh and Bucky represented them at the dinner. The Bachuchins will be at the dinner Saturday to be with their friends.
The families are so close that when Mike talks about the Bakaitis children, he sounds like a father boasting about his own children.
“Those Bakaitis girls, they were something boy,” Mike said. “lt was fun to have them. Beth was the leading scorer on the state runner-up team and in those days, you didn’t get anything for it. No medal. No ribbon. Nothing. Thanks for showing up. Go home.”
He agreed with Bucky’s take on the sisters’ differences as gymnasts.
“Beth was a natural dancer,” Mike said. “And a good all-around gymnast. Diane was the opposite as a dancer. You had to make a floor routine for her, and she would power through the other events. Won the state championship in the vault. Very good in all the events. And in track they were both great hurdlers. Very fast.”
Back then, Mike said, gymnastics practices were from 6 to 9 p.m. at Westchester, across the street from the Bakaitis home.
“Everybody else would be gone and Beth and Diane would be there until 9:30, 10 o’clock some nights,” Mike recalled. “Maria would not let them go until they got it right.”
Their brother, Jeff, was one of those football players the coach never wanted to see on the sideline because that meant he wasn’t on the field. His speed made an impact on offense, defense and all the special teams. Then he starred on the basketball court, twice winning the team’s award as the top defender, and for his first two years of high school he played soccer in the spring and was named most improved player as a sophomore.
It wasn’t until soccer switched from a spring sport to a fall one in 1992 that Bucky discovered that his best sport was the one he hadn’t yet tried: track and field. He stuck with it all the way through his college years at Indiana State.
Jeff was sectional track champion in the 400, an event he ran at two state meets, and still holds the school record in the long jump (23-6.5). He was named DAC MVP in his only two seasons of high school track.
“Jeff was just a phenomenal athlete,” Mike Bachuchin said. “A four-sport athlete and baseball (which he didn’t play in high school) might have been his best sport. He was a very good catcher when he was younger.”
Jeff has worked at Pratt Industries in Valparaiso for 25 years, now is in a leadership role and is a two-time recipient of Pratt’s prestigious Platinum Club award, which recognizes leadership, innovation and engineering support for the company’s top performing sales team.
The Bakaitis athletic genes were passed to the next generation. Jeff’s daughter, Ashlee Bakaitis, played soccer at Chesterton and then for two years at Illinois State and two at Indiana State. Her brother, Ryan, shot a 76 for the Trojans at the Valparaiso sectional in 2022.
Nearly all grandparents paint their grandchildren as saints. In Bucky and Vicky’s case, they have proof. Their grandson Jake Ensminger plays basketball for the Division I Santa Clara University Saints.
Beth’s husband, Chris Ensminger, the former Valparaiso University center on the basketball team, is the director of player development and sports performance for Orange Academy in Ulm, Germany. Basketball players come from throughout Europe to the academy and Ensminger places them at universities throughout the world, many in the United States. The Chicago Bulls’ first-round selection with the 12th overall pick, Noa Essengue, was attending school and playing basketball at the academy. Beth also works there as a teacher.
The program for Saturday’s dinner will be printed by Bucky, 53 years after the first printing job he did for the high school.
Bucky came to work at the high school in 1972 to teach computer graphics.
“I loved his class,” said Zack Wellsand, one of the inductees to be honored this weekend. “What a great guy!”
Bucky said he believes that Glen Percifield, Chesterton’s hugely successful speech and debate coach at the time, was the first to ask him to print something.
“He asked if I could do a program and said here’s the names,” Bucky recalled. “I set the type, printed it out two color and from that day I’ve been doing all the printing.”
The fact that he has been relied on for more than half a century says all that needs to be said about the quality of his work. The fact that all three children are joining him in gaining induction into the Chesterton Athletics Hall of Fame says something about how well Bucky and Vicky have done at their most important job.