The 2016 season will be a new start for Elwood Townsend and the Reginald F. Lewis football team.
Townsend spent the past seven seasons as the head varsity football coach at Frederick Douglass High School where he took the Ducks from a perennial losing program to two-time Maryland Public Secondary School Athletics Association 1A state finalists in 2013 and 2014.
But the 2015 season was a tough one for Townsend. The school suspended Frederick Douglass' season for one week, after a player was arrested and charged with attempted murder for an assault that occurred in the school's cafeteria Sept. 16, 2015.
After returning to practice, the team persevered and qualified for the playoffs at the 3A level but wasn't able to participate after having to forfeit two games for using an ineligible player.
