MORGANTOWN, West Virginia — Well, this is certainly not something you hear every day. West Virginia athletic director Wren Baker confirmed during an appearance on the 3 Guys Before The Game podcast that he was bitten by a copperhead snake inside his own home a couple of weeks ago, and the story of how it happened — and what Baker did immediately afterward — is pretty wild.
According to Baker, he was in the basement of his home changing the filter on his HVAC system when the incident happened. Apparently, the door leading into the basement had previously been blown open by the wind, which gave the copperhead an opportunity to make its way inside without anyone knowing it was there. Baker went downstairs to take care of what should have been a completely routine household chore and suddenly felt an intense pain.
Baker immediately yelled for his wife, and when she came downstairs, he told her that he had been bitten by a copperhead. Understandably, her first reaction was that they needed to get to the hospital immediately. Baker, however, apparently had one piece of unfinished business before he was willing to go anywhere.
He wanted a shovel.
Before heading to the hospital, Baker said he got some revenge on the snake that had just bitten him. He killed the copperhead with the shovel and said he ended up chopping it into four pieces. As if the story wasn’t crazy enough already, Baker also said they discovered the snake was pregnant with babies.
Only after taking care of the snake did Baker finally make his way to the hospital, where he received treatment for the bite. Thankfully, Baker said he is doing fine now and doesn’t appear to have suffered any lasting issues from what could have been a very serious situation.
You’ve got to give Baker some credit for being pretty calm about the entire thing while telling the story, because I’m not sure how many people would handle finding a copperhead in their basement quite like this. Most of us would probably be halfway to the emergency room before even thinking about what happened to the snake. Baker apparently wasn’t leaving his house until he knew that thing wasn’t going to be waiting on him when he got back.
WVU fans have seen Baker handle plenty of difficult situations since taking over as athletic director in Morgantown, but this one probably wasn’t covered in the job description. Coaching searches, conference realignment, NIL, the transfer portal and fundraising are one thing. Getting bitten by a copperhead while changing your HVAC filter is something completely different.
The important thing is that Baker got to the hospital, received treatment and is now okay. But if you’re a snake thinking about sneaking into the Baker household anytime soon, you might want to reconsider.
Apparently, Wren Baker keeps a shovel nearby.
