Lamar County HS Bulldogs (AL)

VERNON, Ala. (WCBI) – Emotions are still high in Vernon.

The Lamar County football team is still dealing with the loss of Bryce Myles, a leader on and off the field who died in a car accident in June.

“We’re just trying to play for him,” freshman wide receiver Bo Spencer said. “Make him proud.”

While the team says talking about Myles has been difficult the past few weeks, they’re trying to discuss their feelings with one another when they’re able to do so.

“We have to get through it,” senior fullback and linebacker Austin Spann said. “He’d want us to get through it. Like the coaches said, just do it for him.”

The Bulldogs say they’re staying positive, keeping Myles in mind and practicing every day the right way; the way Myles would be practicing.

“We are trying to do the same thing that he wanted us to do when he was here,” senior defensive end Quent Long said. “We motivated each other to keep pushing, working hard and don’t give up. Bryce would not want us to give up if he was, or was not, here.”

Myles’ father has even spoken to the team about moving on.

“If Bryce was here, he would be first in line running,” first-year head coach James Moore said. “These guys all decided, ‘we want to do this for him’. The leadership that he had, it’s going to be hard to replace but the person he was was even harder to replace.”

As Moore and Vernon approach their first game without Myles, the team will do so with plenty of inexperience. 17 seniors have graduated.

“We have good senior leadership but this is a young team,” Moore said. “But we’re going to depend on a lot of ninth, tenth and 11th graders to fill roles that seniors were filling last year.”

But Moore says no level of experience on the field could have prepared the team for what it’s dealing with off of it.

Lamar County will take its first snap of the season with 10 men on the field in honor of Myles.