LAURINBURG — Richard Bailey spent Tuesday afternoon cleaning up the remnants of perhaps the most exhilarating season of his 19-year career as a head coach.
Just over a month after the Fighting Scots finished as the runner-up in the 4A state championship game, Bailey worked on cleaning and reorganizing the team’s field house. It was an arduous task, and Bailey knew his work would soon be undone during spring workouts.
It isn’t the most glorious part of his job, but Bailey knows that it is part of a process that produces rewarding results.
One of those results matters more to him than anything else.
“The most rewarding thing is having kids that leave here and go off to college, whether to play football or not to play football, that I see come back,” Bailey said. “I’ve been here long enough that I see kids graduating, going on and getting jobs.”
Hundreds of athletes have suited up for the Scots during Bailey’s seven years at the school. And while his teams have all been successful in those seven years, the process of molding high school freshmen into high-caliber freshmen hasn’t gotten any easier. Many of them grow up in impoverished areas and lack some of the resources needed to succeed later in life.
But Bailey understood that would be the case when he first came to Scotland from Jack Britt prior to the 2012 season. He knew that an integral part of connecting with those athletes would be becoming involved in the community.
He didn’t have to worry about that part. Scotland County welcomed Bailey and his family with open arms, granting him an almost celebrity-like status that comes with being a coach in a community of roughly 15,000 people.
“That’s been unique here, that everyone knows everybody,” Bailey said. “The community really cares about athletics, cares about this school, and the success of this school and community. It’s a neat place to be.”
Coming in with the understanding that football is king in Scotland County, Bailey quickly got to work with a team that had just won a state championship. For the next seven seasons, Bailey became the face of a team that has successfully maintained its status as a perennial power.
There’s been plenty of good times — such as postseason runs and dominant performances by future college players, including Zamir White, who was the top-rated running back recruit in the nation near the end of his time at Scotland.
And there’s also been bad times. Jaylend Ratliffe, a standout quarterback for the Scots, nearly lost his life in an ATV accident in 2014. Ratliffe, who was the No. 11-rated player in North Carolina, suffered a severe brain injury and had a part of his skull removed as doctors worked to save his life.
With the entire community rallying to support him, Ratliff recovered from the accident. Despite still showing some chronic repercussions of the accident, including decreased motor skills and several scars, Ratliffe went on to compete as a hurdler for Scotland’s track team during his final year at the school.
And the story kept getting better: Georgia Tech honored the scholarship they had offered Ratliffe before the accident. Although he was not allowed to play football again, Ratliffe joined the Yellow Jackets as a student assistant. He is now close to becoming a college graduate.
“That’s just so awesome, with what he went through,” Bailey said.
Through the positives and negatives, Bailey has enjoyed developing Scotland’s football program. But he knows that a football team is only as strong as its community, so he frequently makes appearances for several causes around Scotland County.
His community résumé includes helping organize Scotland High’s Booster Ball fundraiser, visiting elementary schools to read to students and helping mentor local kids. He even participated in United Way’s Womanless Beauty Pageant.
He’s also spoken at meetings for numerous organizations, including the Rotary Club and the Optimist Club.
“You probably can’t find an organization in the community that I haven’t spoken to at one time or another,” Bailey said with a smile.
Bailey’s next stop is the Laurinburg-Scotland County Area Chamber of Commerce’s 2019 banquet and business meeting on Thursday, where he will be the guest speaker.
“It’s something I’ve done to reach out to everyone in the community and let them know what’s going positively here at the school,” Bailey said.
Bailey’s involvement in the community doesn’t go unappreciated. Paul Lemmond, the area director of Scotland County’s Fellowship of Christian Athletes, said Bailey does an “outstanding” job of reaching out locally.
“It shows what kind of person he is and how much he cares,” Lemmond said.
Bailey helps the FCA stay involved with the football program, and also supports the group’s initiatives. One of those initiatives was executed in the fall, when eight-time Major League Baseball All Star Darryl Strawberry spoke at Pate Stadium.
“I don’t know how you can be any better than he is,” Lemmond said of Bailey’s efforts.
Bailey remains dedicated to his local involvement because he knows that the football team needs the community just as much as the community needs the football team.
“I do think the football program can be the shining light, if you will,” Bailey said. “It brings a lot of people together. Football is an amazing sport.
“On Friday nights, people don’t care whether you’re Republican or Democrat, whether you’re rich or poor. We all sit up in those stands together, and we cheer on the Fighting Scots. We really don’t care about the socio-economic differences or racial differences. All we care about is that everyone on that field is a Fighting Scot. We’ve got one goal, and that’s to win.”
