Tyree Toliver plays for Baylor.A season that began with so much promise had begun to spiral downward when Baylor School football coach Phil Massey, recognizing his team had reached a crossroads, decided to appeal to the only people he knew could change its course.
Mired in the disappointment of having lost four of five games, and with only one regular-season game remaining before the playoffs began, the veteran coach called his seniors together to deliver a message that appears to have resonated.
“I challenged them,” Massey said. “We were all disappointed with how things had gone, so I told them we can’t change the past or what had happened up to that moment, but we still had a lot of the season left to write the script for how it ends.
“We could’ve gone one of two directions from that point. They chose to go to work, and that mentality has made us a different team than we were then.”
Among those seniors who took Massey’s challenge to heart was defensive end Tyree Toliver, who has helped the resurgent Red Raiders win their regular-season finale and two road playoff games.