Ross Bailey is a true Horned Frog at heart. After 35 years at the university, nobody can dispute that.Bailey is now in his sixth year as associate athletics director for operations. He handles gameday operations for football, basketball, baseball and rifle. He also oversees athletic training, strength training, the equipment room and video.
Before the promotion, Bailey said he served 22 years as head trainer for the university, and that’s still what he enjoys most: helping student-athletes.
Bailey’s high school baseball coach suggested athletic training to him, a relatively new profession in the early 1970s, as a way to stay involved with sports in college. Bailey said his mother was a radiologist and his sister was a pharmacist, so going into athletic training seemed like a reasonable fit.
The old way
Bailey came to TCU because it was one of a few universities that offered an athletic training program. He graduated in 1976 with a bachelor’s of athletic training and completed his master’s in education in 1978, which was also his first year as head trainer.
When Bailey enrolled in the university as a freshman in 1972, he said only seven sports were offered. Women’s teams were added later that year, following the passage of Title IX. Today, there are 18 different athletic programs and eight student trainers.
Back then, the same two student trainers handled athletic injuries for every team, Bailey said. At one point, Bailey worked with Chris Hall, the current director of sports medicine.
“We originally took care of everybody,” Bailey said. “There were two of us in the training room, and then it expanded to three. Now, they have quite a staff of clinicians and educators for the program.”
His current position allows him to continue to work with student trainers, although it’s only once a week as opposed to every day, Bailey said.
“I still get to teach a little bit and get to work with them,” Bailey said. “I still get to interact with those students. It’s the students that make what we do special.”
Some elbow grease
Colleagues in the athletics department said Bailey’s devotion to the school is clear.
“His love for the school is obvious,” said Jack Hesselbrock, associate athletics director for internal relations. “His expertise could take him elsewhere, but he just loves his alma mater. The attention to detail – he treats every project at TCU like it’s the most important – the care, the concern – I think that’s why people admire him.”
Athletics business manager Tommy Love, who has known Bailey the entire time he’s been at TCU, said his work ethic is what people respect.
“There’s probably not a more hard working person in the athletics department,” Love said. “He’s got so many projects on his plate. He literally rolls up his sleeves in that stadium before a football game or works on the diamond before a baseball game. You just don’t see an associate athletics director out there physically doing all the hard work that Ross does.”
Hard work goes noticed
Bailey has been a member of the Southwest Athletic Trainers Association for 35 years. He won the 1981 Eddie Wojecki Award, an award named after the 1956 president of the National Association of Athletic Trainers, and the Frank Medina Award in 1998. Both awards recognize contributions and service to the athletic training community, according to the SWATA Web site.
Bailey was a 2000 inductee into the SWATA Hall of Fame, he said. That year, he switched over to the associate athletics director. He said he was looking for a new challenge, but was still a bit hesitant to move beyond athletic training.
“The student athletic trainers, dealing with them every day was certainly a joy,” Bailey said. “I also thought I would have a bigger chance to make a difference as an associate AD. I welcomed the opportunity, the new challenges.”
The university’s willingness to accommodate Bailey’s need for a challenge is one reason he has stayed loyal to the purple and white for so long.
“I looked at a few jobs through the years and was approached about some different jobs,” Bailey said. “But in the end, really only the colors (would have) changed and not really the job. I just would have taken on a different set of problems or a different set of challenges.
“Every time I needed a challenge in my career, TCU stepped up and provided that challenge.”
Bailey met his wife at TCU and his daughter Lauren graduated in May 2007 with both a bachelor’s and a master’s in education. His younger daughter Courtney will be a freshman next fall.
“We’re going to have a real purple household,” Bailey said.
