Final 2006 Chelsea High School Football record: 22-8 (0-1 week 12; 15-6 SEC; 2-1 playoffs).
Final varsity record: 10-2 (6-1 SEC).

This is the update I didn’t want to write.

On Friday, though Fowlerville came out flying and Chelsea came out flat, the halftime score was only 6-6. But the second half opened with a Fowlerville touchdown, and midway through the fourth quarter the Gladiators held a 21-13 lead.

At that point, somehow, the Bulldogs found a spark. The offense quickly drove down the field and scored a touchdown; on the subsequent kickoff, the ball bounced hard off a Fowlerville player, and Chelsea recovered. A few plays later, the Bulldogs again found the end zone; with just over five minutes to play, they finally had their first lead of the game, 25-21.

Unfortunately, that was not the final swing of emotion. Fowlerville staged an impressive final drive — including two fourth-down conversions — that ended with a touchdown pass with only 19 seconds left in the game. Chelsea’s final pass fell incomplete, and a stunned Bulldog team had to watch the Gladiators celebrate the upset.

Obviously, that sort of loss at home in the playoffs was hard to take. As displayed in the previous photo post, the emotions were evident and strong, both in the players and in the coaches. In his postgame address to the team, coach Brad Bush summed it up with these words: “It hurts so much because you put something into it.”

On a personal note, even for me as a photographer the loss was difficult. Over the course of the season, I spent a number of hours photographing the team; as a result of those countless hours, I became surprisingly attached to and invested in the team.

When the game ended, I slipped into photographer mode enough to capture shots of the players’ reactions. But when they left the field, I stopped being a photographer and started feeling the deep emotions of a heartbroken fan. I never enjoy losing, but this loss was particularly difficult; it was hard to for me to watch the pain of this final defeat in the players and coaches I’ve been observing since early August.

For that reason, though I did slip into photographer mode following the game, I still found myself somewhat reluctant to point my camera at the players, many of whom were in tears over the loss. There is a fine line between documenting important moments and tastelessly invading a personal moment, and that line is something for every photographer to find and respect.

In the end, as the photographs show, I decided to document the moments following the loss. They were moments of intense emotional pain, and as such, they also were moments that help define the team and the season. Eventually, the distinct pain of that final defeat will fade, but the players will not forget the season they had — including the final game. Images of victorious moments are important pieces of the season’s record, but images of those final moments serve as a reminder of just how much these athletes put into their high school football careers.

Right now, the photographs are painful reminders of the defeat; ultimately, for the athletes I was privileged to photograph, I hope the photographs will be profound reminders not of the defeat, but of everything they invested in this team and this program.

And for that investment, I would simply like to say: thank you for your contribution to this chapter of Chelsea Football history, guys.