Knolyn Bailey, a bright-eyed, just-turned-16-year-old, 10th grade running back, has grown up attending football games at Lanier High where his mother teaches. Most years, he says, there was little to cheer where the Bulldogs were concerned.

“We usually got blown out,” Bailey says. “It was a sight to see, not in a good way.”

That’s an understatement. Four of the last 15 Lanier football seasons have been winless. During the first four years of Bailey’s life, the Bulldogs lost 38 consecutive games. Lanier, traditionally a basketball powerhouse with 17 state championships, has won only three football playoff games in school history and has never made it past the second round of the playoffs.

And that brings us to one of the most startling developments in Jackson Public Schools football history. The current Lanier Bulldogs are a perfect 8-0 heading into a Friday night showdown at Florence. Despite moving up to Class 5A, the Bulldogs have out-scored opponents 282-62. Bailey has run for 1,540 yards and 15 touchdowns. 

Surely, Richard Wright, the famous author and a Lanier grad, would have loved to write this story. Lanier, the proud little school on Maple Street, celebrates its 100th year of existence with its best football team ever.  You can’t miss the biggest – and I mean, BIGGEST reason – for this sudden success. He is 6-feet, 6-inch, 315-pound Tommy Kelly, the former Mississippi State and NFL standout, who towers over nearly all his Lanier players.

Says Knolyn Bailey, a smart young man who already attends some college classes at Tougaloo, “Coach Kelly changed the culture here. He has given us structure.”

In the three seasons prior to Kelly’s Lanier arrival in 2024, the Bulldogs won only seven games while losing 24. In 2024, Kelly’s first Bulldogs finished 8-3 and made the Class 4A playoffs. The current eight-game win streak is the longest in school history.

First question: How did this happen?

“Discipline and structure,” Kelly answers. “What can I say? The kids have bought in. At every level of football I played, I learned from some great coaches. I try to coach these kids the way I was coached, and besides that I have a really good coaching staff.”

Second question: Why in the world is a man who once signed a $50 million NFL contract coach a high school football team for about $60,000 a year? Clearly, he doesn’t need the money.

“My players ask me that sometimes,” Kelly says. “The answer is I’ve always wanted to coach, even back when I was playing high school ball at Provine, I knew I was someday gonna coach. This is what I’ve wanted to do my whole life. This is my dream.

“You know, I played for Willie Collins, a great coach, at Provine. I played for Jackie Sherrill, a great coach, at State. I played for coaches like Bill Belichick and Bruce Arians in the pros. I’ve learned from all of them. It’d be a shame to waste all that.”

Both Collins and Wayne Brent, who coached Kelly in basketball at Provine, remember him as a teen-aged sports junkie. Says Brent, “In my 35 years of coaching, I’ve never had another one like Tommy. He knew everything there was to know about players and teams in all the sports. He was a sports encyclopedia.”

Basketball was Kelly’s first love and he played on Provine’s state championship teams. After playing football and basketball as a freshman, he concentrated on basketball as a sophomore and junior before finally returning to football as a senior, graduating in 1999. He instantly became a highly valued college football recruit. Nick Saban came to Provine from Michigan State to recruit him. Virtually every school in the country wanted him. He committed to Ole Miss first before eventually winding up at State, where Sherrill called him “a diamond in the rough who just needs to be polished.”

Sherrill now says he isn’t the least surprised by Kelly’s success as a coach. “He was very smart, especially when it came to football,” Sherrill says. “He picked up things easily.”

Kelly came to Lanier from Provine, where he was the defensive line coach and coordinator for his alma mater. And this will give you another idea of Kelly’s impact: In 2023, his last year there, Provine beat Lanier 40-0. But Kelly’s first Lanier team beat Provine 16-6 and, this season Lanier routed Provine 30-8.

Says Kelly, “I am still a Provine fan 364 days a year, but not on the day we play them.”

Darrell Roberts, a 16-year-old junior and Lanier’s starting quarterback and safety, has experienced the remarkable transformation of Lanier Bulldogs football.

“The year before Coach Kelly got here, we weren’t locked in as a team,” Roberts says. “We had a lot of guys who didn’t care about football. There’s just a lot more discipline now, at lot more focus on football.”

Jamison Kelly, a 17-year-old senior running back and cornerback, doesn’t know anything about Lanier football before Tommy Kelly. All the other Bulldogs call Tommy Kelly “Coach.” Jamison Kelly calls him “Dad.”

Jamison transferred to Lanier from Madison Central, where he had started at safety as a sophomore. Jamison, one of several Bulldogs who play both offense and defense, has committed to play college football at Southern Illinois. He expects to play a lot more Lanier football first.

“I believe we can go all the way to the state championship. I really do,” Jamison says.

At Lanier, Jamison and his teammates practice on a hardscrabble, unkempt and un-lined field, bare in some areas and ankle-high in weeds in others. They lift weights in shifts because of the weight room is so small.

“It’s what we got,” says Tommy Kelly. “You gotta make do with what you’ve got. We just go with it. I think it motivates our guys when we go to other places and see the nice facilities they have. We play with a chip on our shoulder.”

Knolyn Bailey, the sophomore who takes college classes and scores touchdowns in bunches, has had the opportunity to transfer to private schools where the facilities are much nicer. He has remained at Lanier where his friends are and where Kelly teaches life lessons.

Bailey remembers making a critical defensive mistake last year as a freshman and returning to the sideline to face Coach Kelly. Instead of a tongue lashing, he got a huge arm around his shoulder and a softly spoken but matter-of-fact explanation of what he did wrong and what he should do instead the next time.

“It’s tough love you get from Coach Kelly,” Bailey says. “He can be funny, but when it’s time to work, it’s time to work, and we work. We plan to go all the way. Why not?”

Besides Florence Friday night, Lanier has games remaining with Cleveland Central and Vicksburg. None of the three figures to be easy. Should the Bulldogs get to the Class 5A playoffs, the likes of traditional powerhouses West Point, South Jones and Brookhaven would stand in the way.

Tommy Kelly says he loves the fact that his players believe they can compete with anybody and win a championship.

“You gotta believe in yourself,” he says. “You gotta believe in your dreams.”

He should know. He dreamed of being a pro football star and making millions. He did.

He dreamed of becoming a winning high school coach. He has. He dreamed of coaching his son. He is.

His football hero in high school was Warren Sapp. He wound up playing beside him as an Oakland Raider for four seasons.

“Can you believe that?” Kelly says. 

Yes. It’s a lot easier to believe that than believe this sudden transformation of Lanier football.