The End of The Road

Saturday afternoon, half the town of Elsberry, MO drove to Hannibal to watch our varsity boys play another game on the road to State Champions.  The stands were packed with parents, friends, family, neighbors, to cheer the boys on.  They ran on to the court and the cheers were deafening.  Our town are incredibly supportive and proud of the boys.  As well they should be.

We scored the first points.  We started ahead, the way we start every single game.  We score first. Always. We get in front, and stay in front.

Except for Saturday.

We scored first, and that was the only time we were ahead.  A few short minutes later, we were down by 1, then by 4, and the gap continued to grow, until we were down by 20.  The boys just weren’t playing their A game.  They just didn’t look like the boys we had watched win every other game they’d played.

And still the stands roared with support.

Half time came, and they came back out  on to the court ready to play the second half.  And for a while, it looked as if they would rally.  It looked as if they had found their rhythm.   It looked as if they had found their game.

But the other team had found theirs too.

We shrunk the gap to 4 points.  At that point we all thought and believed all was not lost, we could still pull this out, we could still win it.

But in the last two minutes, it didn’t matter what we did, it wasn’t going to happen.

If the cheerleaders and the crowd could have yelled us to victory the game would have been a lock.  The girls and the parents and the family, friends and neighbors never gave up.  They cheered, they yelled, the screamed, they supported and they hoped and dreamed and never, ever, gave up.

Every person in that gym that day fought hard until the buzzer sounded to signal the end of the game.

And the end of our journey.

Our boys would not bring home the championship this, their senior year.

I sat in the stands that day, with my camera, like I had all season long, and I took 830 pictures of the game, of the players, of the cheerleaders.

I put my camera down, as they walked off the court.  Nobody, not them, not their parents, nobody needed or wanted those pictures.

To the cheerleaders of the 2011-2012 season; You are all beautiful girls. It has been my pleasure to capture your beauty and your laughter, the cheers and the fun all season long.  What started out a mom capturing her daughter’s first year on the high school squad, ended up the ‘cheer mom’ capturing serious and fun moments of 10 daughters on the high school cheer squad.

To the basketball players this year.  It has been an exciting ride.  It has been an incredible thrill and honor to capture your skill, your talent, you intensity, and your joy in playing the game.  I honestly hope you know how truly proud this entire town is of you, all of you.  Thank you.

To the parents of both the cheerleaders and the players, thank you for allowing me to capture the stolen moments of your kids this year.  Thank you for allowing me to get to know them, from behind my camera and without it.  Their individual personalities shine though in the photos I took, and I will share them all with you, as you have shared them with me.