Coach Kyle Shoulders and his Red Boiling Springs Bulldogs found a way to breathe new life into the tired old phrases we so often use in describing sports.
They won a football game.
The loveable losers
Everyone in Tennessee knows about Red Boiling Springs. Not many know where it is, but they know what it’s famous for.
0-61.
Before the 2009 season, the Bulldogs had not won a game since Week 9 of the 2002 season. Six consecutive 0-10 seasons – that kind of streak is hard on the soul.
The soul of this tiny town, located in a hollow on the eastern edge of rural Macon County, about 75 miles northeast of Nashville, is already battered. The two major job sources are farming, mostly tobacco, and the Nestle Springs bottling plant.
Neither provides affluence. Money comes hard there, as evidenced by the string of empty shops you drive past on the way to the school. The growth in the county is all to the west, in neighboring Lafayette.
Most towns like this rally around their football teams as a source of community pride and unity -- 0-61 makes either seem hollow.
The only tradition the Bulldogs had was losing. Their latest stretch of futility wasn’t even the worst in the program’s history – the team went 0-63 between 1986 and 1993. From 1986 to this season, the football program was 18-212. As one coach described it, “Everyone wanted to schedule us for homecoming.”
Coach after coach threw himself into the maw – 1980 RBS graduate Tony Boles stepped up in 2003, and then stepped down, winless, in 2007. He was followed by Scott Baughn, who survived one winless season before leaving for personal reasons.
Reasons for the streak abound. The school only enrolls about 200 students, one of the tiniest in the state. Money for anything is scarce. Some of the home situations are not the best.
Maybe losing was to be expected.
Too young to know any better
In April 2009, Shoulders was chosen from four applicants to fill the head coaching vacancy at RBS. The 26-year-old was well aware of the history of the program, having graduated from nearby Macon County High in 2002. So his senior year was the last time the Bulldogs had won.
After earning his teaching degree from Middle Tennessee State University, Shoulders returned to Macon County to teach and coach, serving as offensive coordinator for the Tigers.
RBS Head Coach Kyle Shoulders leads with a quiet confidence.
He still teaches at his alma mater, but Shoulders has planted his flag atop the hill where Red Boiling Springs School stands.
“Actually, the losing record was a bit of an encouragement to me,” Shoulders said. “I knew I could make it my own. I could bring in my own staff, my own traditions, and start moving the program in the right direction.”
Shoulders started by calling some coaching friends and asking them a crazy question: How about coming to Red Boiling Springs?
The new Bulldog staff brought both youthful exuberance and winning expectations with them. Phillip Dean, an ancient 33, is the old man of the group. He and 28-year-old Jason East both coached at state powerhouse and district-foe Trousdale County, a program diametrically opposite RBS in terms of tradition and success.
“They may have thought I was a little crazy when I first called them, but then they realized that we could all be on the same page together, building something from scratch,” Shoulders said.
Shoulders then added an even younger Jeremy Phillips, who at 21 is enrolled in college and working towards his teaching degree. Phillips doubles as coach and scout team quarterback – put pads on him, and you would be hard-pressed to separate him from his charges.
Even the managers are young – two sophomores and a junior.
There’s a new sheriff in town
RBS Coach Jeremy Phillips doubles as the scout team quarterback
The staff went right to work on all aspects of the program. They refurbished the stadium, finding a good field under years of neglect. They tore old lockers out of the field house, renovated the weight room, and created a better home away from home for the team. Volunteer coaches Nathan Grace and Bob Fitzpatrick joined the team.
Next came tearing down the old bad habits.
“The old program had no summer workout program, no conditioning, and no two-a-days in preseason. In fact, one of the first things we had to correct was attendance at practice,” Shoulders said. “In years past, boys would just skip practice.”
Shoulders dropped two rising seniors from the team during the spring; in fact, they were the two best athletes on the squad, including the presumptive starting quarterback.
“They didn’t want to do the work,” Shoulders said and shrugged, telling a story about one hot day during the summer when the team was out running through town. The young man in question drove by the team, radio blaring, laughing and yelling.
“He had told some players that he’d be back starting for the team in the fall, after skipping all the conditioning and training. One of the team members came and asked if that boy could come back, and I said, ‘No.’ I think that sent a message to our boys.”
The staff set four lockers slightly apart and named four captains not for their ability but for their leadership in the classroom, in the hallways and on the field.
You can throw out the record books
There’s a sign on the wall in the weight room that reads, “Did I make my team better today?” It is a mantra that the new staff spent the spring practice and summer instilling in the Bulldogs.
“We never talked about the losses,” Dean said. “We always looked towards the future, and told the boys ‘Don’t look back.’ ”
The RBS staff renovated the old locker rooms and started some new Bulldog traditions.
Instead of a spring scrimmage, the team played a Red vs. White game – quite a feat for a club with only 28 players. However, the combined infusion of youth and commitment sent a jolt through the community, which turned out in numbers for the spring game.
That energy, in turn, helped motivate the players through the summer workout program. Their resolve resonated even more with the townspeople, who responded with more support in the form of money.
Signage along the fences of the stadium multiplied, the program began to see a little bit of money, and even though hopes were rightfully muted, the town turned out in full force on Aug. 21 for the Bulldogs’ home opener against Oakdale.
The Eagles never knew what hit them.
Junior running back Shelton Watson rushed for a touchdown to give RBS an early lead. Sophomore quarterback Cody Dickens found Brandon Kelley in the end zone for a late first-half strike, and Kelley picked off and returned an Oakdale pass in the dying seconds of the quarter, giving the Bulldogs a 21-0 halftime lead. Dickens rushed for one more score in the third, and the team celebrated wildly as the crowd rushed the field at the final horn.
Red Boiling Springs 28, Oakdale 12.
Teaching an old Dog new tricks
It’s the Wednesday afternoon after the big win, and the boys have wrapped up their now-daily conditioning and taken to the practice field. The mood is, well, hard to describe. The boys work hard, but their demeanor is almost muted. Across the field floats a rhythm of count, grunt, crack and whistle. There’s very little of the woofing and yelling that normally accompanies high school football practices.
It’s hard to tell whether that comes from all the attention – television crews have been out to the school several times over the past few days – or from the coaches, who do not seem to be the rah-rah types.
A new optimism has seeped into this old farming community.
The instructions are loud but never screamed. The soft-spoken Shoulders stands slightly apart while his coaches run the individual and positional drills, only occasionally inserting his own observations into the workout. Today is a defensive day, and Shoulders is content to let his coaches coach.
“We try to stay fairly even-keeled and work to get the most out of our players that we can,” said Dean, the secondary coach who did much of the directing during the session.
Dean added that in any new situation like this, a good coach has to be a good salesman, getting the players to buy into what the coaches are presenting.
Motivating this group of players has been surprisingly easy for Shoulders and his staff.
“These kids are hungry to learn,” the head coach said. “We try to show them how important football is to them. As a player, I took some things for granted – now I wish I could go back, just for one more practice, one more game.”
“We’ve tried to instill in these boys the importance of attendance, a good work ethic and dedication – I’m glad that their hard work paid off, and they’ve gotten to show off what they earned.”
For the Bulldogs, it truly is a new season. The streak is over. The team has a bye week to prepare and next week will host Pickett County, where the Bulldogs will try and introduce a phrase never associated with RBS football, a phrase that rang out across the practice field late in the day.
RBS Coach Jason East works with the Bulldog linebacker core, led by senior Ben Halsell (5).
As the first-team defense worked against the scout team, the coach announced fourth down. Huddling together, Watson urged his teammates to make a stand.
“One stop and we’re two-and-oh!” Watson grunted. The defense made a play, and Coach Shoulders wrapped the practice.
2-0? That's called a winning streak. Words rarely heard around Red Boiling Springs.
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