BYRDSTOWN, Tenn. -- When you step onto the Pickett County High School football field, the first thing you notice is the grass. Crunchy and dusty, the field is holding onto its wisps of green like a balding man clinging to his remaining hair. When it rains, the 50-yard line is a miniature sinkhole. It doesn't help that the football field is on a slab of land that's actually a baseball diamond in the spring.

When you walk up the adjoining hill -- where all the sports teams run their sprints -- you reach a locker room that's not in much better shape. Down a crumbling set of stairs and over a puddle of standing water, you enter a dimly lit room where a few lockers just happen to be built. On game days, 28 football players squeeze into a space designed for 10, with elbows flying and the room temperature soaring, even on a cool night.

And when you leave the school grounds, you see that the football team is simply a representation of the larger community. Byrdstown, the county seat, has barely 800 citizens. Pickett County is the smallest county in Tennessee by population, and just like its football team, its resources are dwindling.

One-fifth of the county lives below the poverty line. It was devastated by a tornado in 1998 and in many ways still hasn't recovered. A sense of emptiness prevails. Dale Hollow Lake is nearby, but when the summer months screech to a halt, teenagers spend their Friday nights at the local Dairy Queen.

Their parents work at the local sawmill, boat repair shops or other small businesses, but employment opportunities are limited in tiny Byrdstown. One caution light blinks in the absence of actual traffic lights.

For decades, Pickett County was a place where much of the joy to be found came from the basketball gym. Seven state titles, between the boys' and girls' teams, have landed in Pickett County.

And football? In a state obsessed with the sport, Pickett County never had the resources or bodies to field much of a team.

This is a county where football almost disappeared.

If Pickett County football had had an idea of what its savior would look like, that person probably wouldn't have looked like Brittney Garner. Twenty-five years old, 5-foot-6, soft-spoken and, yes, female, Garner is now the Bobcats' head football coach.

When former head coach O.B. Caudle retired at the end of the 2013 season, and successor Jeff Holt was let go over the summer, Pickett County faced a dilemma. The school needed a head coach who fulfilled the Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association's certification requirements, and that person needed to be employed by the school system. The pay -- $2,000 - wasn't going to convince anyone to pack up and move into the county.

So they looked around the hallways instead. Garner, who was certified because she is head softball coach, stepped forward, knowing that if she didn't, her "boys" wouldn't have a coach (or a season). Caudle -- who had been grandfathered into the TSSAA's rules and did not have to be certified while at the helm -- would come back as her assistant.

Put simply, "We had to have Brittney in order to make us legal," said Diane Elder, director of Pickett County Schools.

Thus, the birth of Tennessee's first female head football coach.

"I was never gonna let them not play," Garner said. "It means too much to them."

Although Garner had never played or coached a down of football before taking the head coaching position, she grew up in Pickett County playing basketball and softball. She had asked during her freshman year if she could try out for the football team, but was told she didn't have the build. Much of what she knew about football came from video games.

"It's more than what I thought it would be," she said. "When I play Madden, I stick with blitzing all the time. I do silly stuff. It's not the same as Madden. ... Whoever came up with football is a genius because there's so much that goes into it."

And although the video-game version of football isn't the same as the blood-and-guts version, Garner still learns from the joystick. She said that she and her boyfriend, Brad Crowder, play Madden much more often since she got the job. It helps her understand how the X's and O's on her playbook pages move in real time, and how all the pieces fit together.

If that sounds a little alarming for a head football coach, that's where Caudle comes in. Caudle, who has had 11 years of coaching experience in Pickett County football (from Pee Wee on up), still calls the plays and runs practices. Garner is in her position mainly for administrative duties, motivation and, of course, to keep the program alive.

A sense of pride has been restored not only to a program or a school, but to an entire county. Adam Pennavaria for espnW

On the sideline, she won't signal in a play or stand in the huddle to give an impassioned speech about linebacker play. Instead, she goes to individual players to offer words of encouragement or a pat on the back. Her players love her and rally around her, just not in the traditional football coach way.

"Just the fact that she stood up in a tough situation and took over," said senior wingback Dakota Tompkins. "I think it brought a lot of energy, the fact that she came in."

Much of that energy has come in the form of TV stations and newspapers wanting interviews.

But Byrdstown itself has caught onto the energy, too, and not just because a woman took the job. When the first homecoming parade in nobody-can-even-remember-how-long snaked its way through the tiny town earlier this month, families came out of their houses to wave, the elementary school let students come outside to watch and businesses all paused their operations. Those hundreds of people weren't cheering for Garner, but for the whole team riding along on a hay bale-lined trailer.

It wasn't some burst of feminism that Garner had brought to Byrdstown.

She had shown Pickett County that its football team was something worth believing in. And she had a key helper behind the scenes.

The cheerleader-turned-lineman

Samantha Harden started on the line for four years at Pickett County and has earned the respect of both the players and the coaches. Adam Pennavaria for espnW

"Hold your blocks! Hold your blocks!"

At Pickett County's homecoming game against Clay County, Samantha Harden's voice could be heard a half-mile away. Later, when one player suffered a gash to his forehead, Harden sat him down on the bench and wrapped gauze around his skull, trying to keep the blood out of his eyes.

In many ways, the road to Garner's acceptance on the football field was paved by Harden, a 2013 Pickett County High School graduate. A four-year starter on the line in high school and a 12-year veteran of the sport, Harden has been a staple of Pickett County football ever since she was a 6-year-old taking off onto the field with the boys, still wearing her Pee Wee cheerleading outfit. Eventually, she was asked if she wanted to switch uniforms.

"She's always been there, so you just never thought anything of it," said Caudle, who coached Harden for several years. "Never thought no different of her. And she's better than a better part of them."

Harden's former teammates would say the same.

She's studying for a career in occupational therapy, but Samantha Harden dreams of one day becoming the head football coach. Adam Pennavaria for espnW

"She was the most knowledgeable, understanding blocking schemes and footwork and technique, more than any other lineman we've probably ever had when I was playing," said current quarterback Ben Neal, who played with Harden through Pee Wee and two years of high school, until she graduated last year.

"I grew up with her. From what I knew, girls were allowed to play."

Back when she was still in pads, players would often come to Harden to ask what they should do during a particular play. Now the 19-year-old Harden is attempting to use that knowledge to catch on with the coaching staff at Pickett County, too. She's been volunteering with the team this season, helping out with the line, where she has the most expertise.

It's not her first coaching experience, either: Harden also coaches a summer youth softball team in Pickett County.

"I just want the kids to enjoy doing something they like and help them improve," she said. "It would be cool for them to look back when they're 40 years old, and say, 'I had Coach Sam and I learned this and that from her.' "

Her helping hand extends off the field, too, where Harden is pursuing a career in occupational therapy. And although she's moving forward with her plans in the medical field, she still holds out hope that one day she could also be head football coach at Pickett County. It's not like her love for the sport will ever dwindle; if anything, it grows stronger when she's not around it.

"I'd love to do it, but with college right now it may not happen in the next couple years," Harden said. "It may happen when I'm 30. It may not ever happen. But if there's ever an opening and the opportunity is there, I'd love to put my hat in the pool and pray for the best."

Until then, Harden will continue volunteering.

"If things remain the same as they are this year, we will probably have the same people and it will be left up to the coach to choose the assistants," Elder said. "[Harden] is very positive about it -- she's pretty mature for her age, and she understands."

For now, Harden's continued presence around the football program lends itself to greater acceptance for the woman who came after her.

"When O.B. came, he was used to me being there, so he's used to a woman being around football," Harden said. "It wasn't awkward for him to have Brittney here because he was used to talking football with me."

Hungry for football

Many of the players in Pickett County who are getting to wear pads this fall because of Garner are players just like Harden: those who breathe football more than oxygen.

Take Tompkins, who quit basketball because he liked the crunch of a solid tackle better than the swish of a net.

Take Neal, who's had a torn ACL and a dislocated elbow derail his seasons, but never his love for the game.

Brittney Garner has made more of an impact by simply stepping up than she ever would have been able to do by calling plays or developing schemes. Adam Pennavaria for espnW

Or, take Kord Blackmon. On homecoming night, he reinjured a shoulder that had already been nagging him, rendering his left arm motionless. His mom came onto the field and pulled his pads over his head before he accepted his night was done. Even though the Bobcats were on their way to a 33-0 loss in the rain, Blackmon's sobs were a reminder that it's the snaps, not the score, that matter to a 16-year-old who just wants to play football.

Harden is much the same way: Being away from the game is like losing one of her hands.

"Last year was really the first year I didn't have anything to do with football, and it nearly killed me," she said. "Now that I'm back, I'm glad, because life without football is like no life. I don't know what to do with myself. ... I love softball. I loved cheering. But football is football. It was me. That is me."

Garner, of course, doesn't share this same attachment to the game: She's never thrown a spiral for a touchdown or bulled her way into an end zone. She's never smelled the grass in her face after taking a hit in a district rivalry game.

But she is aware of the sport's draw and that she had the power to preserve it in Pickett County. And by all accounts, she is learning, carrying around copies of the playbook at practice.

Garner grew up watching and playing basketball, just like the rest of Byrdstown did. Getting to know a new sport, in all its intricacies, was intimidating at first, but only when she failed to see the bigger picture.

"I asked her if she'd thought this through," Garner's father, Terrell, said, when explaining his reaction to his daughter's news. "And she told me it's what the boys needed so she had to do it."

His eyes crinkle: "She can do just about anything she wants to do, I reckon."

Pushing forward

Whether it was for love of the students or for love of the game, two women have emerged as the cornerstones of Pickett County football. Adam Pennavaria for espnW

Somewhere at the intersection of love for the game and love for the players is the female presence within Pickett County football -- Harden, the 12-year veteran with an incomparable knack for blocking schemes, and Garner, the Spanish teacher who didn't love football, but loved the students who couldn't imagine life without it.

With as few resources as the school district had, those students might have had to do more than imagine.

"We're not a real prosperous county," said Tompkins, the senior wingback. "We ain't rich or anything. But we've got enough to make do. As far as talent, we're loaded. Heart, we've got it."