Swirling curls: Grimes community gets buzz cuts for Bob
Bob McKenney surprised
Bob McKenney reacts during the event on his 65th birthday.
Dozens collectively raise over $6,000 for coach fighting breast cancer
By Tom Maguire
Associate editor
The cheerleaders and the Bishop Grimes Pep Band did their numbers for the … barbers.
Seventeen students — including freshman Andrew Wait, who lost an array of massive curls — got buzz cuts Feb. 1 in the gym to raise more than $6,000 for Grimes Athletic Director and Boys Varsity Basketball Coach Bob McKenney, who said he was hanging in there during round three of chemotherapy for breast cancer. He had a mastectomy in November.
Bishop Grimes freshman Andrew Wait sits for his buzz cut on behalf of Grimes Athletic Director Bob McKenney on Feb. 1. (Sun photos | Tom Maguire)
“It’s unbelievable what all these kids [including several of his players] have done,” said Coach McKenney, who was celebrating his 65th birthday during the event called the Birthday Buzz. “I saw Mr. [Assistant Principal Patrick] Kinne’s post; I thought he was the only one” getting the haircut, the coach added. The gym was filled with party sounds as the barbers from The Shop on Erie Boulevard sent endless clumps of hair falling to the plastic sheeting on the floor.
Coach McKenney, who also teaches sports marketing at Grimes, was presented with a candle-topped cupcake and a memory book. The kids in the stands joined in to sing “Happy Birthday” to him.
Newly shorn Assistant Principal Kinne said, “I made the decision to go and do this in order to show a sign of support in solidarity with Bob and just to show him he’s not alone through any of this and that we as the BG community stand with him.”
A post–buzz cut Andrew Wait is shown with his mom, Holly Wait, and AD Bob McKenney.
And what about the kids sacrificing their magnificent coifs?
For some of them, the assistant principal said, the hair is a “big part of their style and everything else so I think it speaks volumes that they’re willing to shave it off in support of Bob.” He figures the kids don’t have to lose their whole persona just because they lost their locks: “Good lesson,” he said with a laugh.
Asked how he will adjust now, freshman Wait said, “Just live life, I guess.”
His mom, Holly Wait, is Grimes’ main-office manager and she also assists Coach McKenney in his athletic-director duties. She said her son with his new haircut “will be just fine; he’s been growing those curls out but as a mom I am happy to see them go; it was getting a little out of control. … We’re actually going on vacation for February break so I know he’ll be nice and cool now.”
Andrew “might be more handsome now that the hair’s gone,” Coach McKenney said, noting that he was a curly-haired guy himself at one time.
With his newly shorn head, Assistant Principal Kinne started to leave the gym.
“Don’t get frostbite,” advised Social Studies Teacher Marni Nolan.
“I have a hat,” he assured her.
