Meet Holiday, the unofficial barber of Gamecocks athletics

Johnny Baez stands up near a barber’s chair, clippers in hand, his eyes focused, not blinking, as he watches the razors take off strands of hair with each rotation.

It’s quiet outside, but in the shop it’s far from it. Five other barbers are standing at other chairs cutting hair, their laughing and talking drowning out the sound of ESPN’s “First Take.”

The shop is bustling with even more people waiting to get haircuts. Fraendy Clervaud, who’s in for his weekly shape up, smiles and asks Baez, who’s known around Columbia as Holiday, “Did you ever think it’d get like this?”

Baez smiles, glances up at the dollar taped to his station’s mirror that reads “Make a million of these,” and shakes his head while saying, “It’s wild, man.”

“I had a vision for it, but the Lord always spoke to me…I know greater things are going to come. But it’s amazing to wake up everyday and feel this. To feel what I feel from the Lord,” Baez said. “I can’t say (I knew it’d get this big), but I knew that I wouldn’t have much to worry about. That’s something I felt within my spirit.”

It’s busy today. First up is Clervaud, one of WACH Fox’s anchors. After that? Football players Bryson Allen-Williams and Bryan Edwards come in for afternoon appointments.

Then the next day it’s Deebo Samuel coming in for a cut.

But it’s been like this for a while now—almost eight years—as Baez and his team of almost 20 barbers, have become the unofficial barbershop of South Carolina athletics.

“It’s cutting hair and some people look at it different ways but I don’t feel like I’m working at work,” Baez said. “Not only is that humbling, but it’s an amazing feeling to wake up every day and feel that way.”

Building an empire

For Baez, cutting hair started in middle school at his brother-in-law’s shop where he got his first pair of clippers.

He quickly learned how to cut his hair and started doing shape ups for his friends before really starting cutting hair in high school.

When he went to junior college, between becoming a national champion track and field athlete, he would cut his teammates’ hair. He was at SUNY Delhi when he caught Gamecock track and field coach Curtis Frye’s eye and was offered a scholarship.

He graduated from South Carolina two years later, after being a team captain his senior season, and went to Knoxville, Tennessee, to train with the goal of running for Puerto Rico.

Before long, he was back in Columbia checking classes for the athletic department. That’s when his own miniature empire started.

“I had some cards made up and letting some of the athletes know I cut hair,” he said.

One of his first clients was two-sport athlete Bruce Ellington, who got the train rolling and sent over other members of the football team, like Jadeveon Clowney. Before too long, almost the entire football team was coming to him for haircuts.

“(Ellington) believed in me,” Baez said. “Yeah, I was there to do my work, but for someone to speak highly of you and tell others, ‘Trust this guy.’ We all know how haircuts are; we don’t really trust anybody. He put it out there and pushed it. I was there. I was there to serve when he set me up like that.”

He’s gone from cutting hair inside athletes’ dorm rooms to his apartment and various barber shops to owning two stores of his own. And now almost all of the football, baseball and basketball teams come to him or one of his barbers for service.

"In all honesty, it’s been amazing, man,” Baez said. “People become themselves in a barber shop. You get to really play around with guys and talk to them before games, ask how they’re feeling. It’s exciting, even being an athlete.”

Humble beginnings

Baez remembers second grade like it was yesterday. Reading didn’t come easy to him, and why should it have?

His mom was a drug user and child protective services took him and his sister. He was in a foster home until he found a home with relatives and didn't devote time to reading and writing.

He was already put in special education classes and didn’t feel comfortable reading in front of people until the tenth grade.

“I think it shaped me to be such a solid individual,” Baez said. “Looking back on it, I never really understood when I was younger. I remember looking back on things thinking no one loved me because of that.”

Baez needed to find an outlet, and he did through sports. He played three in high school growing up about 25 miles outside of the Bronx in New York.

His hard work fueled his passion, earning him a full ride to South Carolina, and it didn’t stop as he’s now known throughout the community. So as he sits here today, he can smile about it.

“It was really rough,” he said. “Through it all I was just working, working and trying. It’s gotten me to where I am now.”

Community first

Baez walks into the first barbershop he ever opened, on Huger Street across from Founders Park, and the bell dings. As we walks in, his eyes drift to four stacked photos hung on the wall nearest the door.

Up top is Medal of Honor recipient and South Carolina student Kyle Carpenter, next to a signed photo of Ellington in his time with the San Francisco 49ers.

Below that, a photo with Marcus Lattimore, Moe Brown and ESPN’s Marty Smith from a College GameDay piece filmed at his shop just two weeks after it opened. Hanging below that? A photo of Pharoh Cooper.

“Knowing I was around when they were grinding, when they were trying to get to where they’re at now, and still knowing them on that humble level, it feels good,” he says, smiling.

He works almost around the clock cutting hair and making sure athletes feel ready to play come game day, because, like he says, “when you look good, you feel good and when you feel good you play good.”

Through all of it though, he senses a higher purpose.

He sees the athletes’ time in his chair as a way to impart some wisdom that’s been gained in over 30 years of hard work and make sure players know how blessed they are to go to a big-time SEC school.

“You’ve been there, you’ve done it. You don’t know everyone’s background but you know how tough you’ve had it,” Baez said. “They become something so big at the university on the athletic level. It’s as if they forget their identity in a sense. When they sit in my chair, it’s like bringing them back down to reality and helping them understand that not everyone goes pro.”

Expansion

When asked if he thinks he’d become the unofficial barber of South Carolina athletics when he started, Baez shakes his head.

He always had a feeling greater things were ahead, yet nothing quite like what he’s doing right now. But, he pauses and says, “I know this isn’t the end."

He’s adding four more barbers in the coming weeks, bringing the total to 17 independent contractors who work around him, all of whom are vital to the shop’s success, he said.

He’s even starting a non-profit, targeted for younger children, to give them free haircuts and teach them the importance of being well-groomed.

He’s been in talks with the Gamecock football program to become a barber in the organization’s new football ops building. It’s just preliminary talks, but he’s excited to see if those materialize into anything substantial.

“They’ve reached out to me. We haven’t really talked too much business with it, but it seems as if they’d like me to be in there,” he said. “It just has to make sense. I hope they reach out again. That way we can talk it over to see if we can work it out “

But today, Baez is just worried about cutting hair.

As Clervaud’s cut finishes up, he gets out of the chair and pays.

Baez shakes his hand and Clervaud leaves with a smile as Baez sweeps up, the dollar still hanging on the mirror, ready to get back to work and make a million more.

“I did the most with the smallest all through faith and hard work,” Baez said. “I’m no one special. If I can do that, I know they can do that no problem. My message is to have faith in what you’re doing and work hard in what you’re doing. In some shape or form, you’ll be successful.”

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