VOX 11.21.13
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M A G A Z I N E
THE VOICE OF COLUMBIA
HOMETOWN HEROES Sights from the sidelines of Harrisburg’s first football season
BOUND IN BROTHERHOOD A small town unites under the Friday night lights PHOTO STORY BY KEVIN COOK
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utside a metal shed turned locker room 15 miles north of Columbia, 25 young men hold hands and pray.The novice players in this town of 271 prepare to take the field for their first game. They’ve practiced since July, but on this Tuesday night in September, a prayer is all they’ve got. Some team members have never played in a football game before now. For the five seniors, this would be their only season. Although some had played the game in middle school, there were a lot of varying skill sets to work with at the start. “There were a lot of things to do,” Head CoachTravis Kinkade says. “I had to figure out where they were, but we made a lot of progress.” That night, on a field without a permanent score board or press box and only one set of bleachers, around 1,000 spectators crowded in to watch a historical first game that was made even better with a 14-12 win. For years, Harrisburg wanted to partake in the timehonored tradition of small-town high school football, but the funds weren’t there. Thanks to the tens of thousands of dollars raised by the Harrisburg Bulldog Booster Club, though, this traditionally basketball town has a new sport to cheer on. In its nine-game season, Harrisburg was not affiliated with a conference. The team was denied entry to the Lewis & Clark Conference by one vote. Seven of the games were junior varsity; two, both losses, were played at the varsity level. The Bulldogs finished the season 5-4, a feat for a first-year team, and in 2014, the team will begin full-time varsity play. Every home game drew a crowd. During the two-month season, Harrisburg players faced injuries and big-time losses, but they also had their first homecoming dance and rode on a float in the town’s annual Septemberfest parade. The group of young men, who in July were merely classmates, took the field on Oct. 25, the night of their final game, as brothers. “We don’t always talk during school, but it’s different on the team,” Malik Jackson says. “We grew up together.” Kevin Cook, an MU photojournalism master’s student, followed Harrisburg’s entire season. Other works by Cook earned gold and silver awards in the 2013 College Photographer of the Year competition. In March, Boston.com named Cook one of the top-40 photojournalists under the age of 25. THE 2013 HARRISBURG FOOTBALL TEAM runs onto the field for its first regular season game on Sept. 3. The team defeated Tipton 14-12. “I was nervous, but once we got out there, those nerves went away,” senior Zach Sublett says. Harrisburg's Drew Ewens scored the team’s first regular season touchdown.
O N L I N E
Get behind the line of scrimmage with an online-exclusive photo slide show of the Bulldogs at voxmagazine.com.
WITH HIS HEAD AGAINST A football, Harrisburg senior Blake Berry, one of four team captains, rests during practice in September. Berry fractured his big toe in the first game. “It’s frustrating,” Berry says. He was injured again later in the season. “All you want to do is play.” Berry also plays basketball and baseball for Harrisburg. He hopes to go to college and “do something that involves sports” after he graduates from high school.
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FOOTBALL TEAM MANAGER AMBER WILLIAMS was named Miss Harrisburg 2013. She receives a hug from her boyfriend, sophomore football player Gage Grooms, following the opening parade for Harrisburg’s Fall Festival, Septemberfest. This year the football team had its own float in the festival parade. Williams attended most of the season’s games and practices. “It’s kind of hard not to hug her,” Grooms says. “She was really supportive. It was good to see her every day.”
CODY ADAMS, CHAD STUART AND TYLER MCMAHAN ride the bus to the team’s final game against Clopton High School. Of the team’s three away games, the two-hour drive to Calumet was the longest. The team lost 68-22. “It’s fun to be together,” Stuart says. “It’s the last time we got to play; that’s exciting.”
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BLAKE WILLIAMS, LEFT, AND CODY ADAMS, right, watch senior captain Cortney Franklin’s introduction at the team’s homecoming pep rally on Oct 4. Before every game, Franklin would energize his team. “We are going to hit them hard,” Franklin told his teammates as they prepared to take the field for their first varsity game. “We are going to show them why we are here.” Harrisburg lost 41-0 to Fr. Tolton Catholic High School. “(That game) tested our character,” he says. “Even though we were down, we kept fighting.” Franklin plans to attend Moberly Area Community College next year to enroll in the nursing program.
HARRISBURG HIGH STUDENTS ATTEND the school’s first football homecoming dance. The festivities were held in the cafeteria on Oct. 5, and a majority of the football players celebrated their first varsity game.
MICHAEL JACKSON RESTS in the bed of a truck after sustaining an injury at practice. “This is the only sport you can hit someone for fun,” Jackson says. For many of the Bulldogs, it was their first year playing football. These players not only had to learn the rules of the game but also how to tackle players safely. Overall, only two players were seriously injured during the season.
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HARRISBURG DEFEATED SOUTH Callaway 28–6 in a junior varsity game on Oct. 15. The team finished 5–4 for the season in its first year as a junior varsity team. The team was ineligible for the playoffs because it had no conference affiliation. Following the game, team manager Amber Williams was recognized alongside seniors Blake Berry, Cortney Franklin, Chris Johnmeyer, Jacob Rudkin and Zach Sublett. “The season came to an end too quick,” Franklin says.
“DO YOU THINK MY NOSE IS BROKEN?” Harrisburg freshman Jeffery Baker asked Head Coach Travis Kinkade after the team’s final game of the season. A hard hit in the game’s fourth quarter injured Baker, but his nose wasn’t broken. “It’s kind of cool,” he says laughing, as he looks at the blood on his jersey. Baker broke his wrist the first practice of the season and got to play in only four games. “You have to put it all on the line — this is the last time you can play for all the seniors,” Baker says of the final matchup.
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HARRISBURG HEAD COACH TRAVIS KINKADE paces back and forth during warm-ups prior to the team’s last game. Kinkade played for the 2003 Centralia High School team, which won the Missouri football Class 2 state championship that year. He went on to play for Missouri Western State from 2004– 07, where he started at left tackle his junior and senior years. “Tonight you play for your brothers, the graduating seniors and the town of Harrisburg,” Kinkade told his team before the game. “It was an honor to be able to teach life lessons through the game of football,” he says.
FRESHMAN TAYLOR BOTTOMLEY EMBRACES senior Blake Berry after their final game. “We’ll miss you,” Bottomley told Berry. “We’ll miss playing with you.” Five seniors played their first and final season for the Bulldogs. Although Berry played only one year of high school football, he says, “one year is better than none.”
SENIOR ZACH SUBLETT DONS HIS PADS IN the school’s weight room three hours prior to the Sept. 17 game against Brookfield. Like the mustachioed lifter on the wall, players were challenged with their own balancing acts. Team members had to learn a new sport and how to juggle schoolwork while playing the game. This proved difficult; one player was subsequently placed on academic probation during the season.