Photo of the Variable Time Period, vol. 144

On Saturday, the Michigan High School Football Coaches Association held its annual all-star football game at Spartan Stadium in East Lansing. Aside from being a shining beacon of Actual Football Action in the vast wasteland of the Arid Lifeless Offseason, the game is a lot of fun for me because I get to shoot football on the sidelines of a Big Ten stadium, and that’s halfway to fulfilling a dream of mine. (Yeah, it’s Spartan Stadium, but … well, they can’t all be Michigan Stadium.) This year, thanks to my connection to Heritage Newspapers, the West team gave me four athletes and two coaches to photograph:

DT Dean Roberts (Chelsea)
LB Chris Marsh (Dexter)
WR Sam Burchyett (Saline)
WR Marvon Sanders (Ypsilanti)
Brad Bush (Head coach, Chelsea)
Grant Fanning (Assistant coach, Chelsea)

Last year’s game featured bright sunlight and brilliant blue skies, and let me tell you, it was hot; this year’s game was cooler thanks to cloudy skies with a chance not of meatballs, but of thunderstorms. The thunderstorms never happened, but it did start to rain midway through the second half; the rain continued through the end of the game, and it managed to soak everyone on the field, including me (but not my camera, thanks to my outstanding Storm Jacket camera cover).

The game itself was largely defensive; neither team reached the end zone, but on the strength of three field goals, the East (Detroit and a few nearby counties) defeated the West (the rest of the state), 9-0.

Dexter’s Chris Marsh