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Glenn's workers helped out after fire destroyed most of team's equipment
Bill Bailey of Glenn's Sporting Goods was the main person responsible for making sure that the Tolsia High School football team had the jersey's and helmets it needed to play after a fire destroyed the team's athletic complex.
Purchase this photoHUNTINGTON -- Bill Bailey, manager of team sales for Glenn's Sporting Goods, was watching his grandson the morning of Oct. 13, the day that fire destroyed Tolsia High School football team's facilities building.
He hadn't watched the news because he was busy getting the boy ready for day care. Then his phone rang. It was an old friend, Wayne County Assistant Superintendent Jerry Workman, with the news.
Within an hour, Bailey had his grandson at day care, had coworkers at Glenn's -- including his boss, Jim Brumfield -- making phone calls to manufacturers across the country, and was at the school in Fort Gay.
By lunchtime, he and co-worker Chris McGlone, had the players measured and put years of relationship-building with manufacturers to the test by asking for shipments the very next day.
They needed jerseys, game pants, helmets, shoes, socks, shoulder pads, knee pads, thigh pads -- the list goes on. The team had its biggest rivalry game that weekend against Wayne High School, and Bailey and the team at Glenn's did everything in their power to make sure that the roughly 40 players had what they needed to play.
And they did it. They didn't get everything they needed the very next day, but they got it by Thursday, and they were ready to play on Saturday night.
"By 5:15 on Thursday, we had every kid on the football team in brand new gear going onto the practice field," said Danny Mayo, athletic director at Tolsia High School. "(Bailey) said that in all his years of selling sporting goods, he'd witnessed one of the most memorable moments of his life: watching the kids march onto the practice field in their uniforms.
"I wish I had the words to thank Glenn's for what they did for us. ... Without Bill Bailey and Chris McGlone working on this as diligently as they did, I don't think it would have come together as it has."
It was a result of some quick action and having a lot of good connections, said Bailey. Not only did he have strong connections to the Tolsia community, as a Wayne County resident himself, but also connections with the salesman for his suppliers.
A current Ceredo native and former quarterback for the Ceredo-Kenova Wonders, Bailey and some of the school officials in Wayne County go pretty far back, either from his school days or just providing their teams with uniforms and supplies over the years.
And he's quick to point out that he's not the only one who put forth so much effort. For example, Mayo recruited a group of community volunteers who helped assemble football helmets on Thursday morning.
"When it's a small community, everybody wants to help out and do the right thing," Bailey said.
Even the manufacturers wanted to help out because of the circumstances, and many took extra measures to get their products put together with the right colors and sizes at a rapid pace. After 29 years in the business, Bailey was able to ask that of them, he said.
"Glenn's being a company in good standing with manufacturers allowed me to pick up the phone and say, 'I need this,' " he said.
One of the manufacturers' salesman even went to Marshall with Bailey. Jack Crabtree, a salesman for Wilson Sporting Goods, was a member of the Young Thundering Herd and went to school with Bailey in the 1970s.
The Tolsia team lost almost everything in the fire, with the exception of 32 jerseys at the dry cleaners and a few other things.
It lost its first aid supplies, its marking equipment for the field, P.A. system -- everything. Glenn's replaced as much as it could as quickly as it could, including footballs.
Tolsia lost the game Saturday, but it was still a victory for everybody, said Glenn's owner Brumfield, who helped Bailey in making those initial phone calls the morning of the fire, along with Judy Braley at Glenn's.
"This was more than just a football game, and that's what local business is all about," Brumfield said. "I was putting things on my personal credit card."
The fraud department from the credit company even called his house to report unusual behavior, he said.
"We were doing everything we could because there wasn't time to go through the normal channels on some things," Brumfield said.
"It was like putting a jigsaw puzzle together, and guess what -- none of the pieces were missing."
