The song “Lean on Me” best describes what Rhett Bailey and Elkmont are doing this year. The senior missed most of his high school football career with the Red Devils due to do a prolonged battled with cancer.
Bailey beat the odds last season and returned to the playing field. The senior is back for what he hopes to be his first full season as an Elkmont football player. His presence provides an obvious motivational boost, but he is also one of the best athletes on the team.
“For us, it’s important because he is such a good athlete,” said head coach Sean Holt. “He can tell the other guys to suck it up sometimes and they listen because of what he’s been through.”
After making the playoffs four out of the last five years, Elkmont struggled in Holt’s second season. The Red Devils went 2-10, suffering the program’s worst record since 2004 (1-9).
It was a marked change from the success Elkmont enjoyed in Holt’s first season at the helm. In 2011, the Red Devils enjoyed one of the best seasons in school history.
With one of the program’s largest and most talented senior classes, Elmont advanced to the second round of the playoffs, losing to eventual 3A runner- up Madison Academy.
Most of that team graduated, leaving Elmont with only a handful of returning starters to compete in an improved region.
The team predictably struggled with a schedule that included the 3A state champs, an improved Colbert County squad, perennial power Deshler and 4A semifinalist Lauderdale County.
Unfortunately for the Red Devils, those teams are on the schedule this year. The good news is most of Elkmont’s players have seen it all before, losing just five seniors off last year’s team.
Bailey and four other seniors — Nick Moore, Derek Lovell, Kris Gooch and Cody Thomas — will be the heart of the team. If Elkmont is to have success running the ball, they will have to find wide receiver Bailey and tight end Gooch enough to keep teams honest.
Defensively, the Red Devils’ strongest unit is the linebacking core where Gooch and Jared Bailey lead the most experienced position on defense.
Elkmont will travel to East Lawrence for a jamboree at 7 p.m. Friday, Aug. 23. The Red Devils open their season against Ardmore on their home field the following Friday at 7 p. m.
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