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Canadian connection has benefited both Baylor and McCallie on football field in recent seasons

Staff file photo by Matt Hamilton / Baylor tight end Max Leblanc (10) is among the Canadian players who have helped the Red Raiders and rival McCallie in recent seasons.
Staff file photo by Matt Hamilton / Baylor tight end Max Leblanc (10) is among the Canadian players who have helped the Red Raiders and rival McCallie in recent seasons. Staff file photo by Matt Hamilton / Baylor tight end Max Leblanc (10) is among the Canadian players who have helped the Red Raiders and rival McCallie in recent seasons.

By Stephen Hargis 4 min read

Famously, Rock City visitors can see seven states from the top of Lookout Mountain. As impressive as that view may be, however, it doesn’t quite reach to the Canadian border.

For that perspective to come into focus, a bit of chance and football foresight was needed.

(WATCH: Baylor, McCallie both release hype videos ahead of Friday night’s rivalry game)

Just before the 2020 high school football season, three Canadian athletes — Emile Bellerose, Kenzy Paul and Thomas Pilon — were researching American schools where they could transfer and play their senior season because all athletics had been canceled in their country that fall due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Those three not only helped McCallie win its second straight TSSAA Division II-AAA state championship, they also spread the word back home about their positive experience down South. In the three years since, a Canadian pipeline to Chattanooga has developed, and it has been mutually beneficial for both the athletes looking for scholarship opportunities as well as the Baylor and McCallie programs.