Todd Bailess was one of head coach Gary Hall’s greatest recruits coming out of Osbourn Park High School in Manassas, Va., where he was a regional Olympic Development Player, and he certainly did not disappoint with his Barton career. Bailess scored 51 goals as a Bulldog, ranking him third all-time.
Not only was he an outstanding student (4.0 GPA his final five semesters), he led the Carolinas-Virginia Athletics Conference in scoring his junior and senior seasons and was a three-time All-Conference selection. He was the school’s first NCAA All-Region player in 1995, the CVAC Player of the Year in 1997, the Kiwanis Male Athlete of the Year in 1998 and 1999 and the school’s first CVAC Male Athlete of the Year in 1999. He was also the college’s first graduate from the Criminal Justice Program.
Bailess was named All-State and made the All-Metro Washington Post team as a prep player, but said, “I don’t believe I became a complete soccer player until I got to Barton College.”
He later served as the women’s soccer coach at Barton from 2000 to 2002, leading the Lady Bulldogs to the league title in 2001 and 2002. His coaching record was a sparkling 38-15-2 (.709). Barton was a school best 16-2-1 in the 2001 season, which ended with a home loss in the NCAA Regional Championship. That season, Bailess was named Regional Coach of the Year. His sweeper back was All-American Stacey Radford, who eventually succeeded him as head coach.
His three-year stint as a coach was also memorable. Bailess cherishes the time spent with some talented young ladies and considered it a valuable learning experience on many levels. He gave credit to his predecessor, Scott Ginn, for leaving him a good corps of players to build upon before directing the Lady Bulldogs to their highest national ranking of No. 9 in 2001, when they were the regular-season Carolinas-Virginia Athletics Conference champs and ranked No. 1 in the region.
His father, Bob, was a longtime football coach and his mom, Julia, a sports fan, “so early on I was taught the principles of hard work, desire and what it took to be successful on the athletic field,” he said. “I also had some very good coaches that I was able to learn from. That, along with good teammates, was a combination for success.”
After graduation, Bailess played one year of professional soccer for the Carolina Dynamo in Greensboro, N.C. He obtained a master’s degree in sports administration from East Carolina University in 2001 and a degree from the West Virginia College of Law in 2006. He now runs a law firm in Charleston, W.Va.
