The story of the shoemaker and the elves is more than 200 years old, but it remains a familiar fairy tale. An old, destitute shoemaker is down to his last piece of leather. He goes to bed one evening, having left the leather and his cobbler’s tools out in his workshop, and awakes to find that elves have made an elegant pair of shoes for him that he can sell at a high price.



Scott Stricklin has lived that story. But his involves a chainsaw and Andrew Chafin.



It was 2009, and Stricklin was then the head baseball coach at Kent State. While his players were tending to the infield, Stricklin decided to do some work of his own. Kent State’s Schoonover Stadium is nestled in a wooded area to the south of campus, and Stricklin headed into the trees behind home plate to chop a few of them down. When the chain came off his chainsaw, he gave up and decided to grab lunch.



When he returned an hour later, the chainsaw was fixed. In the place of the fallen tree...