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Pitcher's
reputation earns him stint as Olympic coach
L.B. Bailey will help coach the underdog
Greek softball team this summer in Athens. 2004
By Randy King
For years, Roanoker L.B. Bailey entertained visions of his
daughter Brandy pitching for the U.S. softball team in the
2004 Olympics. "That was a big dream in our house,"
he said.
In even the wildest of his Olympic
fantasies, never could Bailey have imagined that he would
wind up being the family representative in Athens.
Bailey, 51, a pitcher for more than
20 years in the Roanoke Valley's now-deceased fast-pitch leagues,
recently accepted an invitation to serve as an assistant coach
for the host Greece team. He will join the team July 6 in
New York City, where it will begin an exhibition schedule
that includes games in the Netherlands and the Czech Republic
before the entourage checks into the Olympic Village on Aug.
6.
"I never would have believed
it if somebody had told me this was going to happen,"
Bailey said. "I'm going to be doing a lot of scouting
of other teams' pitchers and hitters, and I will throw batting
practice to the team. Even if they need me to make a food
run, I'll be a team player.
"It's not a bad deal for an ol'
country boy from Roanoke, huh?"
Problem with pitching arm
ended her softball career
If truth be known, L.B. Bailey would
give up every dime to his name for his daughter to be making
the trip to Athens instead.
Brandy, under the tutelage of her
father, started chucking a softball at age 7. She enjoyed
a phenomenal career at Northside High School, posting an 84-13
record with 31 no-hitters. The high school All-American was
so dominant that she orally committed to a full scholarship
to Mississippi State University during her junior year at
Northside.
After enrolling at Mississippi State
in 2001, Brandy's college career was terminated before she
ever threw a pitch. One of her ribs was pressing against an
artery, cutting off the blood circulation to her right arm
- her pitching arm. Surgery to remove the rib in December
2001 didn't alleviate the problem and ended her pitching days.
"That is the hardest thing I've
ever had to deal with," said L.B. Bailey, who spent thousands
of hours grooming Brandy's pitching career.
"Lots of people used to say,
'Boy, you made Brandy a great pitcher.' Well, Brandy made
Brandy a great pitcher. She worked harder than any athlete
I've ever seen because her goal was to eventually play in
the Olympics."
Bailey, 20, who just completed her
junior year academically at Mississippi State, said she's
happy for her father.
"It's funny how things change,"
she said. "I'm glad at least one of us gets to go. He's
very deserving. He knows the game. There are people who think
they know, but they don't really know."
He got lucrative offer
to lead Chinese team
Primarily because of Brandy's success,
L.B. Bailey soon found a lot of parents asking him to help
teach their daughters how to pitch.
"The phone kept ringing, some
kids started to have success, it snowballed, and I couldn't
get away from it," he said. "I was dying inside
for my daughter, but it was curing for me."
Bailey's relationship with Southern
California-based Ernie Parker helped him get his foot in the
international door. Parker, 71, is a world-renowned pitching
guru whose students have included such big names as softball
poster girl Jennie Finch.
"Ernie and I just hit it off
real well when I took Brandy there when she was 13,"
Bailey said. "The next thing you know, he was asking
me to go do clinics with him."
When Parker decided he didn't want
to go to China to conduct a pitching clinic in March 2002,
he recommended to the International Softball Federation that
it send Bailey. Chinese officials loved how Bailey helped
their team's young pitchers develop in his 16-day visit. He
made a return trip that year, staying from May to August,
and traveling with the team to Korea, Hawaii, California and
Canada, where it finished third in the World Cup and qualified
for the Olympics.
Bailey said he soon was extended an
invitation to lead China's team in Athens, but he turned down
a lucrative offer - "I could have retired for basically
two years of work," he said - because he didn't want
to miss his son Chase's final two years of baseball at Northside.
"I told Chase there wasn't enough
money in China for that because I had spent so much time with
Brandy and I need to spend some time with you," he said.
During his tenure with the Chinese
team at the World Cup in Canada, Bailey made quite an impression
on Diane Ninemire, head coach of 2002 Division I national
champion California.
"I found L.B. to be just a wealth
of knowledge," Ninemire said. "He was so good at
scouting the tendencies of hitters and pitchers. L.B. is nice,
very personable, very honest, down-to-earth, a hard worker
and has so much excitement for the game. I feel like destiny
brought us together."
After being named head coach of the
Greek Olympic team, longtime Arizona State coach Linda Wells
tapped Ninemire as an assistant. In turn, Ninemire strongly
recommended that Wells pick up Bailey to help coach a team
that will be the biggest underdog in the eight-team field
in Athens.
"The biggest honor about this
whole thing is being highly thought enough by two of the best
coaches in this country to hire me to go with them,"
Bailey said.
The affable Bailey, who has never
seen a room of people he couldn't work, said his wife, Robin,
has been instrumental as his softball stock has skyrocketed.
"She kept telling me all along,
' omebody's going to get you to go to the Olympics,'"
Bailey said. I kind of doubted that, then it happened. I just
thank her for taking care of the family while I've done what
I love to do."
On that note, Robin Bailey said going
to the Olympics will cost her husband.
"Our 25th wedding anniversary
is Aug. 18," she said. "I hope he gets off that
plane with a medal in one hand, but in the other hand he'd
better have a sparking diamond ring for me."
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