Lamar Football Coach Scott Bailey steps down after 14 years, seven straight state championships

Lamar High School head football coach Scott Bailey told his team today that he is stepping down as coach after 14 seasons at the helm.

Bailey's Tigers set a national record with seven consecutive state championships from 2011 to 2017.

In an interview when the Lamar High School football program was inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 2018, Bailey credited the success to his players.

“It starts with the kids,” Bailey said. “You can have all the coaches you want. You can have all the support from the community. But you still have to have the kids. And even then, they have to have something inside them not to settle for past success.”

In the same article, though, Bailey spoke of a change in his coaching philosophy that brought success to his team- when he started building his teams around when I knew how to coach best and not necessarily what they did best and how he started making up for his earlier lack of developing relationships with his players.

Bailey's Tigers squads compiled a 151-41 record. This year, the team advanced to the state quarterfinals.

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The first signing for the newly-published book The Buck Starts Here: Harry S. Truman and the City of Lamar will be held 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. this Thursday, December 5, at the Mary K. Finley Library in Lamar. The book is also available in paperback and e-book from Amazon at the links below.