Ken Bailey is one of the newest members of the TSSAA Hall of Fame, as he and 12 other people were inducted Saturday during a banquet in Murfreesboro.

Bailey is the third person from Greene County to be inducted into the state high school's Hall of Fame, joining Leonard Coffman and Fred Sorrells. Coffman was inducted in 1999 as an official although he was a successful football coach at Greeneville High School, and Sorrells, a football coach at Greeneville, was inducted in 2007.

"It was real nice, just an enjoyable weekend," Bailey said today from his home in Baileyton. "The TSSAA just does a fantastic job of putting on that ceremony. And for me to just be mentioned in that group of Hall of Famers like Buck Van Huss and Dickie Warren and Jerry White ... well, it's pretty special."

Bailey gained notoriety as a basketball coach while serving at Bulls Gap High School from 1955-1975, where his Bulldogs, despite being a very small school, took on all comers and shocked a number of them with their efficiency on the court.

An educator from 1953-1995, Bailey also coached for eight years at North Greene High School, where he also served as assistant principal, and he was principal at Baileyton Elementary School for 12 years until his retirement in 1995.

Bailey won 338 basketball games during his career, many of those coming at Bulls Gap before the days of classification. That meant that the smallest schools had to take on the largest when tournament time rolled around, but the Bulldogs had no fear. They had three seasons with more than 30 victories, won 40 consecutive district basketball games and five district championships during one stretch and represented the district in regional competition 11 times.

The Bulldogs made it to the state tournament in the 1966-67 season.

"It's unbelievable how that happened," Bailey remembers. "I thought in the 1965-66 season we had one of our better teams, but we got beat. Then the next year, after losing five or six good players, we went to the state tournament."

His best seasons at Bulls Gap were teams that concluded play with records of 31-3, 24-8, 24-7, 21-8, 32-4, 30-5 and 25-8.

"We just had good players at Bulls Gap," Bailey said. "A lot of people are responsible for what success I had. Mr. (Carl) Starnes took a chance by hiring me when he did at Bulls Gap, because it was a good basketball program. We worked hard and put in a lot of time. At small schools, you sometimes had one or two years of a really good team, then you go through a few lean years. But the good players just kept coming at Bulls Gap."

While at North Greene High School, Bailey was a successful girls basketball coach, and he also served as softball coach for the Lady Huskies, taking the team to a state runnerup finish in 1979.

Bailey remains an active member of the Baileyton community, where he has served as a town alderman since 1977. He's chairman of the board for the Rural Health Services Consortium of Northeast Tennessee and is active in the Baileyton United Methodist Church.

It was a busy week for the Bailey family. The Hall of Fame inductees were taken to Nashville on Thursday to be introduced before the Tennessee Legislature. There he got to see some old friends -- Dennis Roach and Dale Ford -- who are now state representatives after careers in coaching (Roach) and umpiring (Ford).

The induction ceremony Saturday at the Embassy Suites Conference Center in Murfreesboro was impressive, with a number of current members of the Hall of Fame joining in the festivities along with the TSSAA staff.

Banners with the names of each inductee lined the room, and each inductee was presented with a commemorative plaque. The inductees also received a TSSAA Hall of Fame lapel pin, and Mike Reed, a member of the TSSAA Board of Control and a former assistant coach under Bailey at Bulls Gap High School, presented Bailey with his pin.

Ronnie Carter, TSSAA Executive Director who has announced his impending retirement, welcomed the gathering and recognized all the past TSSAA Hall of Fame members that were present.

A video was also presented which included old photographs and clippings of the inductees during their younger days performing the tasks that resulted in their being recognized this particular day.

Bailey was joined in Murfreesboro by his wife, Amelia, and several members of his family. Son Kenneth Bailey Jr. and wife Sandy, along with children Meredith, Lauren and Trey, were in attendance. Also present was daughter Mary Ann Hall and husband Steve, along with their children, Drew and Troy. Another daughter, Sharon McLane and children Grace and John, live in Hawaii and were unable to attend.