Like dark chocolate, manual transmissions, and unconditional love, football is one of life’s great highlights. Chelsea started its 2012 season at home against Jackson Lumen Christi.

Pregame:

Football:

Zach (23) was happy after making a 43-yard field goal.

Former Bulldog and current Michigan State Spartan Nick Hill showed up to cheer on the team.

Halftime:

More football:

This went for a touchdown.

Sadly, Lumen Christi defeated Chelsea 34-27.

Varsity 2011 record: 1-1 (0-0 SEC White)

The Enemy:
Opponent: East Lansing
Mascot: Trojans
Last Year’s Record: 7-3
Previous Result vs. Chelsea: 24-16 EL win (2007)
Last 10 years vs. Chelsea: 1-0
Miscellany: East Lansing High School is just across town from Michigan State University. MSU is the Spartans; ELHS is the Trojans. MSU is green and white; ELHS is blue and white and wears uniforms strikingly similar to those of Penn State, an MSU rival. Perhaps best of all: ELHS fans frequently utilize the cheer “Go Blue!” — a favorite cheer of Michigan, MSU’s hated rival. I might be tempted to make MSU-related jokes, but whether by accident or by design, ELHS is as far from MSU as ethics are from OSU football.

The Photos:

Mark Moundros covers the points. Do you cover the points?

Grant Fanning will give you five good reasons.

The marching band paid tribute to CHS cross country runner Kersch Ray, who had been hit by a car that morning and was in a coma.

In the first half, Tyler Geiger grabbed an interception and returned it for a touchdown:

After that, the Chelsea defense got back to its regularly-scheduled tackling.

The student section saw the signs. They opened up their minds. They saw the signs.

This isn’t quite the intent of the slogan, but…hey, it works. Actually, it works remarkably well. Excellent work.

Frowny face.

The Chelsea JV football team faced the Ypsilanti Braves (because I know a number of YHS grads who will enjoy that reference). It was a close game, but it finished well for Chelsea.

One Ypsi extra point attempt was extra something, but it wasn’t extra pointy. The ball ended up about 20 yards behind the line of scrimmage, where Chelsea recovered it.

In high school football a failed extra point can’t be returned by the defense, so shortly after the Bulldogs picked up the ball, the whistle sounded. But before the whistle sounded, the Ypsi player tried to make a nonstandard tackle.

For the kids out there: that’s not proper tackling form. Try to avoid that unless your preferred style of tackling is not tackling.

The Chelsea defense spent some quality time with defensive coordinator Corey Knight.

Meanwhile, head coach Chris Orlandi had his eyes on the field.

It’s no surprise he was watching the field. Fascinating things were happening on the field!

At one point, Coach Orlandi wanted to turn right, but he used the wrong arm to signal, so…would that make it a left turn signal? Of course, he wasn’t on a bike or in a car, so it’s not really important that he used the wrong arm.

Freshmen: d. 20-35 by Novi
JV:  d. 40-47 by Novi

Varsity 2011 record: 1-0 (0-0 SEC White)

The Enemy:
Opponent: Novi
Colors: Green and white
Color Scheme Attractiveness Rating (0-10, 10 being highly attractive): 0 — as a Michigan fan I’m morally obligated to ridicule this color scheme.
Mascot: Wildcats
Interesting Mascot Rating (0-10, 10 being highly interesting): 0 — you take the wildcat as a mascot to blend into the crowd, not to be interesting.
Last Year’s Record: 5-4
Previous Result vs. Chelsea: 14-28 loss (2006)
Last 10 years vs. Chelsea: 2-3

The Game:
First quarter:
Chelsea kicked off to Novi to start the game, but that’s where the generosity ended: Novi went three and out and attempted a punt. Attempted? Yes, attempted: Truman Hadley changed it from a punt to an unconditional surrender by blocking the punt. Unfortunately, Chelsea managed only a field goal. A few minutes later a short Chelsea punt set up Novi for a one-play, 30-yard touchdown drive. This gave Novi only a 6-3 lead thanks to a postmodern extra point that defied the social construct of the uprights. The rest of the quarter was a tug of war that nobody won.

Second quarter:
The quarter break rudely interrupted a promising Chelsea drive. The second quarter began with four consecutive carries by Berkley Edwards, the last of which was a 13-yard touchdown run. Chelsea kicker Zack Rabbitt embraced the objective truth of the uprights to give Chelsea a 10-6 lead. Dominic Davis ended another bout of tug of war with an interception to set Chelsea up inside the Novi 30. Faced with a fourth and goal from the one, Berkley Edwards again took the ball into the end zone, and Chelsea carried a 17-6 lead into halftime.

Halftime!

Om nom nom nom nom.

Twirler? Tightrope walker? You make the call.

Third quarter:
Chelsea’s first drive of the second half stalled, but that’s okay: Max Giller grabbed an interception and gave Chelsea the ball at the Novi 15. Can you guess who scored a touchdown on the next play? No, not Billy Sims, though that would have been exciting. Instead, Berkley Edwards carried the ball 15 yards for his third touchdown of the evening. The stout Chelsea defense forced another punt after a three and out, but a muff on the receiving end gave Novi another chance…to punt again after another three and out. More tug of war filled out the rest of the quarter.

Fourth quarter:
With Chelsea in Lloyd Carr’s Patented Protect The Lead mode, much of the fourth quarter was filled with tug of war. But with four minutes to play, Novi finally managed to return Chelsea’s opening-drive favor by blocking a punt. One minute later Novi finally found the end zone again. The two-point attempt failed, but Chelsea’s lead was down to 12. Chelsea fans grew a bit nervous when Novi recovered the ensuing onside kick, but the Bulldog defense shut down the drive in short order and handed the ball back to the offense with 2:10 to play. Andy Nelson’s 11-yard run gave Chelsea all the downs it needed to seal its season-opening 24-12 victory.

The Stats:
•Chelsea gained a total of 202 yards, 184 of which were on the ground.
•Berkley Edwards gained 119 yards and three touchdowns on 25 carries.
•The Chelsea defense held Novi to exactly zero third- and fourth-down conversions. Novi was 0-11 on third-downs and 0-3 on fourth downs.

The Images:

Max was concerned the lines on the field might not be straight. After close examination, he decided they were indeed sufficiently straight.

Chad’s number one! Chad’s number one!

On Novi’s first drive, Max Giller broke up a pass with a solid and perfectly-timed hit on the receiver. Here’s how it looked:

Hey, Truman: the old Bell slogan was “Reach out and touch someone,” not “Reach out and touch some punt.”

Michael and Sean sang a lovely duet.

Aaaaaaahhhhhh! The mosquitoes are atta…oh, wait. Those are just rubber pellets from the turf.

Apparently Novi plays helmet-optional football.

Together, Jack and Michael are a good time for lunch.

It seems Dominic has acquired the skill of levitation, too!

Dominic: this season’s most fashionable belt.

No, Dominic. That’s not what they mean by “hip hop”.

Jarred is good at avoiding the sackarazzi.

Novi must have taken a coffee break.

The Berkley Express: now arriving at the end zone.

Say hello to Cody’s not-so-little friend.

Happiness is an opening-week victory.

Where there is victory, there are cheerleaders.

Cody must have been watching an episode of the Cosby Show.

All the cool kids are having their pictures taken with Berkley.

Watch out, Coach Bush: I think Sean wants that trophy.

So…many…Bulldogs…

Next week:
Chelsea takes on the Trojans of East Lansing. The game is in Chelsea at 7pm on Friday.

Chelsea football hosted its annual preseason scrimmage. Like last year, the scrimmage also featured Grand Ledge, Monroe Jefferson and former SEC rival Pinckney.

It was a beautiful day for football. It was also a beautiful day to try out my new fisheye lens.

Whoa. That’s…uh…whoa. This could be fun.

Since it’s a scrimmage, there are coaches being all coachy all over the field.

I don’t know why Coach Fanning is smiling, but I think it’s because he sees my camera pointed at him.*

*(No I don’t.)

Jarred, one of the color-confused quarterbacks, used his foot to make sure the field had enough little rubber pellets.

Yeah, I guess he was throwing the ball, too. Whatever.

How would I rate this block? Well…

I’d give it a 10.

Here, a Bulldog ball carrier makes eye contact with a defender in an effort to humanize himself to the defender.

Unfortunately, his efforts to calm the defender’s violent human nature nature were unsuccessful.

Another Bulldog ball carrier had to fend off an insatiable autograph seeker.

Later, the Bulldog defense got to return the favor by swarming a Pinckney ball carrier.

I’m certain they got his autograph.

Do Bulldogs prowl? Because this one looks like he’s on the prowl.

Though he may be on the prowl, I think bulldogs tend to be on the jowl more than the prowl.

Hey, look! Another autograph session!

However, the Bulldogs continued to be stingy with their autographs.

Logan, satisfied with Jarred’s census of the little rubber pellets, concentrated on throwing the ball.

As the evening progressed, Alex improved his ability to avoid autograph seekers.

Meanwhile, I don’t know what noise was happening in the end zone, but one Bulldog didn’t want the other one to hear it.

Maybe Jim Tressel was giving a speech on ethics or something. If that was the case, I would’ve covered somebody’s ears, too.

I’ve heard of sleepwalking, but…sleeptackling?

Impressive.

Here’s a helpful tip: if you’re getting a little tired later in the game, just hitch a ride with somebody else.

This year the locker room door has a new look designed to encourage full effort from the team.

Because I’m not on the team and thus not subject to the disapproval of the coaches — or at least not subject to the exhausting consequences of that disapproval — I’d be tempted to bring a box of all laundry detergent to give for Chelsea today.

In light of that, if the coaches weren’t already glad I’m neither athletic nor in high school, I’m sure they are now.

The receivers began evening practice with white-on-white violence. (It appears that the running backs were in this group, too, but for the sake of my laziness, let’s just call them all receivers for now.)

What? I meant white jerseys. What did you think I meant?

I suspect this drill had something to do with ball security, but I don’t actually know what it was about. For all I know it could have been about instilling a deep hatred for blue objects. That would be odd, though, since Chelsea’s home jerseys are blue. Is self-loathing a valid football strategy?

Actually, now that I look at the photos again, those shields are closer to Adrian’s blue than they are to Chelsea’s. Thanks to its unrelenting Adrian-ness, Adrian-loathing is fine by me.

Of course, since they’re (mostly) receivers, they also had to do a little bit of receiving. But since they didn’t benefit from Coach Moundros’ “Smile for the camera!” lesson, they had the audacity to keep their eyes on the ball while I was taking pictures.

Speaking of Coach Moundros: have you seen his website, happybald.com? If you haven’t, you should — especially if you’re proudly bald or reluctantly balding.

Okay, back to the catchy action.

Despite his intent concentration, this receiver took a moment to show me the size of the fish he caught just the other day.

Not to be outdone, the next receiver bragged about his more impressive fishing triumph.

Finally, one receiver demonstrated his superb levitation skills.

Is levitation against the rules of high school football? If not, there are going to be some shocked and awed defensive backs this year.

Meanwhile, the offensive linemen were making sure he didn’t levitate the turf along with the ball.

They were also taking out some anger on the poor defenseless blue shields.

If you gave that blue shield a university diploma and called it a therapist, I bet it could charge an absurd hourly rate and still be inundated with patients. “Tell me about your childhood.” THUMP. “And how does that make you feel?” THUMP. “Have you ever told your dad how you feel?” THUMP. “I feel we made real progress today. See you next week!” THUMP. (That last one was the door closing.)

Elsewhere, Jarred was explaining how many touchdowns he’d like to score against Novi in week 1.

That might be four, or it might be four and a half. Since three points is half of six, maybe he wants to score four touchdowns and kick a field goal.

Do you think you’re in pain? Oh, you don’t know pain until Tom…

…gives you a skeptical look and tells you a hangnail isn’t that big a deal, Low-Pain-Tolerance Lucy. (For the record, I don’t know what the player was actually telling Tom. I’m not accusing him of being a Wimpy Wanda. Or a Fearful Felicity. Or a Mousy Melinda. Or even a Cowering Clarissa.)

Dom was staring at the ball…

…but now he’s staring into your soul.

Does that make you uncomfortable? Well, that’s what you get for leaving your soul unlocked. You should be more cautious next time, Careless Carol.

Eventually the coaches began the board drill. No, a board drill isn’t a power drill designed to put holes in lumber. Okay, I guess it could be that. But in football, a board drill is when you line up two players across from each other and have them try to push and shove each other out of the county. (That may or may not be an exaggeration.) This is what it looks like:

The yellow pad underneath the players is the board. The whistle blows when one of the players pushes the other off the board. It might look like violent chaos — and, like the game of football, I suppose it is — but it’s a useful drill for the coaches.

Take a look at how intently Coach Bush is watching this battle.

Oh, but Coach Bush doesn’t have a monopoly on being intent. Look at Coach Lindauer!

The rest of the team gets into the drill, too. It’s set up as a battle between the offense (white jerseys) and the defense (Cerulean-American jerseys), and the players get vocal about it.

Chelsea football continued its preseason preparations. There was one thing that made this day notable: it was the first day of full-contact practice! There was violence…

…and the constant threat of violence…

…and more violence.

Coach Brown the Younger might have been working on defensive line spacing…

…or he might have been pushing the lineman aside to rush the passer himself.

Either way, the linemen got their own chances to rush the passer.

When the afternoon practice session wrapped up, Coach Bush told the team a bedtime story.

The story involved lots of pointing. Brady Hoke would be proud.

Before they took a break for dinner, the position coaches talked to the players. Coach Schumann talked to the quarterbacks, a position group that seems to have a hard time remembering the school colors. Hint: they’re not red and white.

Quarterbacks: can’t live with ’em, can’t feed ’em to Brian Urlacher.

This is Coach Schumann’s first year on the Chelsea football coaching staff, but it’s not his first experience with Chelsea football: he’s a CHS grad. He’s been coaching elsewhere for a while, but obviously the gravitational pull of Chelsea football was too great for him to resist. Welcome back, Coach Schumann!

It’s August. Do you remember what happens in August?

FOOTBALL. FOOTBALL HAPPENS IN AUGUST. I know the all-caps seem a bit excessive, but football is exciting. It’s so exciting that I happily photograph practices. That’s not sarcasm or snark; that’s just the truth. FOOTBALL IS EXCITING.

If you don’t believe me, take at a look: even the players were jumping for joy.

What? Those were defensive backs working on their pass defense skills? A minor technicality. Move on, quibbler.

An important part of early football practices is teaching players to forget some of the things they learned in kindergarten. Most notably, the defensive players have to forget how to share. This tends to be an easy lesson.

Coach Moundros also had some important lessons for the defensive backs:

“And remember: when you make a play, be sure to smile for the camera over there.”

Dom was a quick study.

“Just one fist bump? Please?”

If you still don’t believe me when I say football is exciting — what on earth is wrong with you?! — maybe Coach Fanning’s jazz hands will convince you.

Did you think that was funny? I hope so, because Coach Fanning certainly did.

What? He wasn’t laughing about that? Again, a minor technicality. Move on, quibbler.

If you started reading this blog after last football season, you might not be familiar with the Chelsea High School football coaching staff. You’ve already seen most of them in this year’s practice photos, but there’s one notable gentleman you haven’t yet seen this year.

The blue-shirted gentleman in that photo — and the next two photos — is Coach Lindauer. He also happens to be the mayor of the city of Chelsea. Double the authority? Double the fun!

Here, Coach Lindauer shows an offensive lineman how to work with the city council:

I don’t recall exactly what he was saying, but I’m guessing it had something to do with leverage and proper use of the hands. That’s applicable to politics, right?

One other coach you haven’t yet met on the blog this year is the man in charge: Coach Bush.

If you’re too sweaty and you need a shower, Coach Bush isn’t afraid to let you know.

Coach Taylor believes in the transformative power of orange cones:

It’s been said that the eyes are the window to the soul, but…

…in the case of Coach Brown the Younger, the eyes are the mirror back to your own eyes.

Coach Dignan and Coach Brown the Elder spent some time with the starting quarterback:

What’s the problem? It has a ridiculously strong, consistent and accurate arm, and it’s mobile! Isn’t that what you want in a quarterback these days?

Another important part of the preseason is teaching the players how to properly wear a helmet. Here’s a hint: this is not how to properly wear a helmet.

In order to form a more perfect pass rush, the defensive linemen began training to become ninjas.

Feel free to insert your own sound effects.

Though I have no idea what it has to do with football, in this photo it appears the defensive linemen are trying to learn how to take an offensive lineman’s pulse, too. Progress is slow, though, because they’re having trouble locating the wrist.

Of course, an actual real not-humorous part of preseason practice is learning the playbook. Here, Coach Taylor holds up a play for the offense to run.

I know what you’re thinking: “Where’s the play? Is that the play called Jazz, where everybody just improvises something?” While that would be cool in a totally disastrous way, that’s not the case. There was a real play diagrammed on the sheet, but its identity has been hidden for its own protection. So, if you’re from Dexter and you’re here hoping to get an edge by learning one of Chelsea’s plays, I’m sorry I didn’t help you.

Wait…no I’m not. I’ll never even try to pretend to be impartial when it comes to Chelsea football. The day I help Dexter football against Chelsea is the day that won’t ever exist in this universe.

We interrupt this timeline to bring you the best thing ever.

Monday was my birthday. It also happened to be the first day of Chelsea football practice. Could anything make that combination better? Possibly, but it’d have to be pretty fantastic, like the immediate reinstatement of Michigan’s classic blue license plates or something.

My day was mostly full, but I would have been negligent had I not made time for a visit to the first day of practice. When I arrived, the defense was just making its way down to the field. As the players stretched, I had the privilege of meeting one of the newest teachers in Chelsea and the newest coach on the Chelsea High School football coaching staff: Mark Moundros.

You’ll note that even though it was his first day on the job, Mark already looked plenty coachy.

If you can’t shake the feeling you’ve heard his name somewhere, this page might help.

Coach Brown the Elder began the practice with a feat of immense strength.

Okay, I guess that’s a feat of immense balance. I’m sure somehow I’d end up inside the garbage cans if I tried that. I’m that coordinated.

In the unlikely (and/or entirely possible) event that I forgot whose practice I was watching — hey, I turned old on this birthday! — Coach Dignan provided a helpful reminder.

He also provided a reminder of the sport they were practicing.

“See that colorful section of the field over there? That’s called the end zone. It’s very important.”

Meanwhile, Coach Brown the Elder went for high visibility.

Clearly, the high visibility worked: all these players are looking in his direction.