The Fearless Bailey Foley

The incredible story of a high school star’s recovery from a terrifying brain injury and how it changed the way he and his family, friends and coaches see the sport.

- Tim Keown

The coach doesn’t want to think about how many times he’s watched the game. He knows it’s an unhealthy number, a troubling number, maybe even a shocking one. But he takes the laser pointer and sits down, preparing to attack it with forensic intensity, one more time. He’s a detective, unable to shake the cold case that haunts him.

He pulls down the screen at the front of his classroom and cues up the kickoff, hopeful he might see something he missed the first 50 or 60 or 100 times. He is immediately taken back to Aug. 25, 2017: the knot in his stomach, the helplessness, the grim knowledge of how many lives would change before it’s over. He can stop the film before every play and describe it. He’ll tell you what the alignment is, what play is called, how it turned out.

“Now, what I want you to look out for here is …” he’ll begin.

We are sitting in his classroom at Fortuna High School, 270 miles north of San Francisco, watching a game that took place at Cardinal Newman High School in Santa Rosa, the first game of Mike Benbow’s 10th season as Fortuna’s head coach. The objective, as always, is to follow one player, senior Bailey Foley, No. 20, a 5-foot-11, 180-pound defensive end and part-time running back with a reputation for throwing his body around like it didn’t belong to him. “God, he was a tough-ass kid,” says his teammate and best friend, Ethan Higgins. “Best word is fearless.” Benbow tried Bailey all over the field before settling on weak side end, where he was all-county as a junior the year before. “I just put him out there to blow things up,” Benbow says. “He wasn’t much for assignment football, but he could destroy plays.”