San Francisco 49ers' general manager Trent Baalke spoke to the students of the Wisconsin-area school district where he grew up.

When Baalke graduated from Laconia High School in 1982, he earned a football scholarship to Bemidji State.

But his football career appeared to be over when he began working construction before receiving a calling to coach while working 110 feet below ground in the Minneapolis sewers.

“I started thinking, am I going to do this for the rest of my life?,” he said of working underground. “I love coaching football.”

Baalke held assistant jobs at North Dakota State and South Dakota State.

“I wanted to get into Division I coaching and couldn’t get a job,” Baalke said. “I had two great interviews and they said you don’t have any experience. It was kind of ironic the two guys that turned me down for the job also had started out as Division II small school coaches. They had forgotten where they started.

“That’s an important message for you: never forget where you started, never forget where you came from.”

The New York Jets offered Baalke a scouting job that paid $70,000 less than a finance job he eventually interviewed for after serving as athletic director at a Fargo High School.