HEREABOUTS beth anspach
When Brandon Smith was growing up in Huber Heights, he was accustomed to hanging out with professional athletes. He not only attended hockey games at Hara Arena, but he got to sound the siren after a team scored.
Smith’s grandfather, Edgar “Lefty” McFadden, was known as one of the original founding fathers of hockey in Dayton. He served as general manager of the original Dayton Gems.
“My grandfather started the Dayton Gems hockey team in 1964, along with the Wampler family,” Smith said. “And though his background was in baseball, he really wanted to give hockey a try.”
For 12 years, McFadden poured his heart and soul into the Gems and promoted the team to a community that eventually embraced hockey and nearly filled Hara Arena every game. He did this while he maintained his writing career at the Dayton Daily News and the Journal Herald and operating a Dayton Speedway.
“The thing about my grandfather is he had a knack for promotion,” Smith said. “He helped bring people in for the games with some of his now legendary promotions.”
Smith, 44, owns a landscaping company, has four children ages 5-21, and officiates at high school and college sporting events.
In honor of his grandfather, Smith recently took a job with the new Dayton Gems selling corporate sponsorship and season tickets.
Though Smith calls it a “challenging” time in the Dayton economic environment, he has a passion for the Dayton Gems. He said he is hoping to share that enthusiasm with local businesses.
“It’s a tough time right now, and we definitely won’t ever see hockey filling the arena like it did in the ’60s,” said Smith, a Wayne High School graduate. “There is so much competition now for folks’ time. Between high schools sports and professional sporting events, it’s a struggle to get people to give hockey a try.”
But Smith believes in the hockey team and at the urging of his grandmother, who told him he’d be good at selling the team to companies, he decided to join the Dayton Gems. Smith said he hopes to be instrumental in rebuilding the Gems franchise.
“I know people are skeptical about hockey after what happened with the Bombers,” Smith said of the failed hockey franchise that recently left the Nutter Center. “But first and foremost, they need to understand that there is a minimum three-year contract, so the Gems aren’t going away anytime soon.
“And Hara is great for hockey. It’s amazing the energy and atmosphere when you get 2,500 people in there. It’s loud, and it’s rocking,” he said.
In order to sell people on sponsorships, Smith said he employs his vast knowledge about the history of Dayton’s original hockey team.
“I tell people about my childhood in Huber Heights, about attending the games in the ’60s and how exciting they were,” he said.
When he spoke at his grandfather’s memorial service five years ago — after Dayton legends like sportscaster Omar Williams and Dayton Daily News writer Bucky Albers spoke — Smith said all he could think about was his childhood heroes.
“I had heroes like every kid — Pete Rose and Johnny Bench. But my biggest hero of all was Lefty McFadden,” he said.
Contact this columnist at (937) 475-8212 or banspach@woh.rr.com.
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