Shake & Bake, Part II

Editor’s note: Check out the Jan. 20 Timescall Life section for Part I of Tony Glaros’ Longmont Lessons column.

“You know, my uncle was a football star,” swooned Chloe, our daughter-in-law. ” … I have his phone number if you want.” Glenn “Shake & Bake” Doughty played his college ball at Michigan and eight years as a wide receiver for the Baltimore Colts.

Jo Barnes was tapped as Doughty’s first employee at the Shake & Bake Family Fun Center. It was a life-affirming experience.

“I was the executive secretary when they opened up,” she remembered. “There was a Monday night gospel skate. Churches came out and played more than regular music. We lived right across the street on Pennsylvania Avenue. When they closed at night, my mother and I were their eyes.”

Barnes, 71, said since the city took over Shake & Bake, something’s missing. “They need to hire the right people,” she stated, in order to recapture that original magic. “You couldn’t find a more loving couple” than Glenn and wife Janice. “It was almost like a fairy tale.”

Barnes’s son, Christopher Hall, was also intimately familiar with the business. From the time he was a child, he considered the indoor playground a second home and brimming with wholesome competition and interaction.

“I started going to Shake & Bake when I was 4-yearsold,” said Hall, 46, a city police detective. “Back then, it was a safe haven from the violence,” highlighted by open-air drug markets. “Uncle Glenn definitely set the bar high as far as expectations. I pray more people follow in his footsteps.”

Growing up in a home with a star athlete as a father meant you were asked to adhere to certain physical rhythms, said Doughty’s daughter, Nikki Doughty, the associate director of strategic initiatives at the Institute for School Partnership at Washington University in St Louis.

As a teenager, “my dad would wake me up at 6 a.m. every morning to walk to the outdoor basketball courts at a school in my neighborhood.”

Her brother, Derek, would complete the trio. Blurry-eyed, they greeted the day.

“First, we had drills. My dad would explain his method of training and why I was doing certain drills at certain times. We did sprints down the court, lunges down the court, lateral switch feet up and down the court.”

But that was merely the warmup.

“After an hour of all this, we would begin basketball drills.” Through their weekly routine, she underscored the fact that her dad’s personal qualities bubbled to the surface. “He was persistent, patient, motivating, encouraging.”

As a youngster, Doughty demonstrated his unique physicality. Tragically, he also got his first taste of targeted discrimination.