Rockdale County teacher takes lessons beyond the classroom and onto the football field

For Lindsay Ezell, teaching does not end when students leave her math classroom.

At Rockdale County High School, Ezell also coaches girls flag football, using the field as another place to teach, challenge and encourage her students.

Practice starts with the basics - stretching, warming up, and getting a few throws in. But for Ezell, the work is about more than football.

Her relationship with team captain Amaryllis Thomas Johnson began years before the two ended up together on the football field.

Thomas Johnson ran track for Ezell in middle school, where she broke a school record. When her previous coach left, Thomas Johnson reached out to Ezell.

"She knows the potential that you could be, and she pushes you to it," Thomas Johnson said.

That belief has become a defining part of their relationship.

"She believed in me, so I believed in her," she said.

Ezell has spent about a decade in education. While at Memorial Middle School, she was named the school's 2024-25 Teacher of the Year and was one of three finalists for Rockdale County Public Schools' districtwide honor. She has also received Rookie Teacher of the Year and Technology Teacher of the Year honors.

Now at Rockdale County High School, Ezell's connection with students stretches from solving problems in the classroom to working through challenges on the field.

That relationship has also worked both ways. When Ezell lost her dog, she said her players rallied around her.

"They told me that just because I lost my fur baby, they're my babies," Ezell said.

For Ezell, those relationships are part of what makes teaching and coaching meaningful: helping students recognize what they are capable of and giving them someone who believes in them along the way.