- April 19, 2024
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It was Sept. 6, and the Foundation Academy football team’s usual Thursday walkthrough had ended.
Many players had left campus, while some — such as quarterback Henry Austad — remained behind to watch the middle-school football team’s game. It was while he watched that game that Austad got a call from his mother: Bailey Trinder, Austad’s friend since they were 4 years old and teammate on the varsity football team, had been in a severe car crash while driving home from practice.
“(My mom) just told me that was in a bad accident, they didn’t know what was going to happen and he’d been airlifted,” Austad said. “We didn’t know if he was going make it.”
Austad relayed the news to Foundation Academy head football coach Brad Lord. Soon, they were part of a large caravan headed to Orlando Regional Medical Center, where Trinder had been taken.
Members of the team stayed at ORMC until the morning hours. The prognosis was not good, and when Lord left the hospital at 11 p.m., he kept the ringer on his phone on, awaiting the bad news he feared would come.
“Every time I heard my phone, I was waiting for the news that Bailey had joined God in heaven — and by 6 in the morning, I hadn’t gotten that,” Lord said.
Trinder survived the night. Doctors diagnosed a spinal injury and possible paralysis to the lower half of his body — as well as a severe concussion and other injuries. But he was fighting back.
For those such as Tanner Hammond, who has known him since grade school, this was no surprise.
“(Trinder) is very feisty — he never backs down from a challenge,” Hammond said. “I’m not surprised at all — he’s one of the toughest people I know.”
It had been a sleepless night for many of his teammates. When they and the rest of the student body arrived to campus the next morning, the Foundation Academy administration already had jumped into action. In place of a scheduled pep rally, there was prayer, and faculty and other professionals were available for consultation.
Additionally, there was still the matter of the home game scheduled for that night.
Lord, Athletic Director Lisa Eaves and school President David Buckles ultimately put the question to the team. At about 11 a.m. Sept. 7, the Lions gathered in their weight room and Buckles asked whether they wanted to play that night.
“Every hand in that room went up,” Lord said.
The Lions figured their teammate would want them to stay focused and compete.
Then, around 4 p.m., Bradenton Christian — the team’s opponent that night — arrived on campus earlier than a visiting team normally would. Bradenton Christian is coached by Dan Fort, a former defensive coordinator at Foundation, and he and his team arrived early to pray with the Lions for Trinder. They also brought a small — but powerful — gift: helmet stickers with Trinder’s No. 68 on them, for both teams to wear that night and the rest of the season.
“That was definitely one of the classiest things I’ve ever seen,” Hammond said.
The game was a reprieve. The absence of their teammate was glaring, but the adrenaline of a high-school football game served its purpose of distraction.
“Warm-ups were a little weird,” Austad said. “Once we started hitting, it just kind of faded away.”
The Lions had little trouble winning that night, topping Bradenton Christian 30-0. As the game’s final seconds ticked off the clock, a chant of “Bailey, Bailey” echoed from the stands. Then the game was over, and so was the reprieve.
“As soon as that clock hit zero, reality just hit you again,” Hammond said.
The Lions (4-0) earned another win Sept. 14. The team is off to its best start in program history.
Yet, all of that seems a little less important now. But the Lions know the spirit of their teammate and they have resolved to play on.
“Bailey is a fighter — he’s not going to quit,”Lord said.
Neither, it seems, will his teammates.
