Chapter 5/Bart Starr and the fitness center

Mr. Loyd:

We enjoy your spot on the news. In these days of high prices and unethical people, we need more help like yours!

Mrs. Henry Gaab
Ripon, WI.

I quickly became known as the "Action Man" in northeast Wisconsin and people with problems contacted me for help.

"Truth is, Glen Loyd wasn't really a polished reporter," says Bob Schulze, who was sports director at TV-11. "But there was a combination of honesty, sincerity and integrity about him that connected with viewers. The Action Man was his very promotable nickname. It was the early era of the consumer reporter protecting the little guys from the big bad ones. It didn't matter if it was the scam home repair contractor ripping-off a senior citizen or an arrogant corporate polluter, Action was an equal opportunity bulldog."

I went after a railroad secretly dumping waste oil into the Bay of Green Bay. I helped tenants having trouble with slum landlords. I exposed a fitness center high-pressuring consumers. Cruel salespeople there told young wives, "You are getting fat and are going to have trouble with your husband because of your appearance." They pressured the women into signing multi-year contracts financed at a very high interest rate. "Don't tell your husband," the salespeople said. "It will be a nice surprise for him when you lose weight."

Most people who sign up for fitness centers stop going after several visits but they can't cancel the contracts. Bill collectors plagued the Green Bay women.

Eventually the husbands discovered what was going on and got mad, and the wives were humiliated because they had secretly caused financial problems and had not lost any weight.

Some Green Bay Packer players were being paid to promote the fitness center. So I decided to call new head coach Bart Starr, who as quarterback had led Green Bay to 5 NFL titles and 2 Super Bowl wins. He was doing his TV show at my station, and we knew each other.

I told Bart that his players were involved with a questionable business. I thought Bart would want to know this so his players wouldn't get into trouble, and fans wouldn't be misled. Instead, Bart got irritated with me. He was a new coach and I was pestering him at a time when he was extremely busy.

"I was called out of an important meeting to take your call," he said. "Preseason planning is crucial to us, and you just can't bother me with this stuff."

Although I was disappointed in Bart's response, in later years he always had time to help children I was working with in the Big Brother Big Sisters organization. Like a gentle father, he would take their hand and show these kids around Lambeau field and be very nice to them. Bart took football seriously and had a tendency to over explain the technical aspects of it to little kids. While not understanding what he was talking about, the kids knew this was a famous man who was treating them like his own children. When Bart lost a son to drugs, he began helping families cope with abuse problems.

When Bart wouldn't help me, I turned over 50 complaints about the fitness center to the Brown County District Attorney, and eventually the spa people left town. I got money back for many unhappy consumers.

Over the years, I have received hundreds of fitness center complaints. Many have signed up consumers with long term contracts and then gone out of business.

Because people who join fitness clubs may quit after a short time, it's important for consumers not to sign long-term contracts.

By the way, another Green Bay Packer coach was a spokesman for a rip-off product I investigated. Nolan Cromwell, a former football star turned Packer special teams coach, went on a TV infomercial praising Therapy Plus, a $50 "magic wand" claimed to relieve arthritis pain. The company pulled the infomercial in Wisconsin when the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection went after them because of unproven claims.