This picture shown above is by no means the best picture ever taken. You can see the top of someone’s head creep into the bottom of the frame, and if you stare long enough, you can see that the picture is tilted in the horizontal direction. However, this is still probably my favorite picture that I have taken because it captures the full essence of one of my favorite times in my life: Friday Night Lights.
I was a part of the marching band in high school, which meant that I went to every single high school football game, and being from the North Texas area, where high school football is, for better or for worse, of utmost importance as far as the school district was concerned, this brought many unique experiences, whether it be visiting the absurd high school stadiums of Allen High School and Prosper High School, or taking part in game day festivities such as pep rallies and marches.
Going to school on game day always had a different feeling, as there was a sense of excitement and anticipation in the air. You could also tell it was gameday with the sea of maroon, our school color, filling the halls. We would have our pep rally in the morning, where some students would come to the gym to watch the drill team and the band each perform a routine and all the sports teams would be introduced, while other students would ditch school because they could. It was a win-win for everyone.
The school day would go by in a flash, and then it was time for us to have our pregame rehearsal, where we would quickly go through all the songs we were going to play, and march through important sets of our show to lock them in for the night. After rehearsal, we would have our pregame meal, which was almost always Raising Cane’s, or Chick-Fil-A if we were lucky.
After our meal, we got dressed in our uniforms, hopped on the buses and headed to the stadium. We always got to the stadium early to warm up again and to perform our traditional march around the field playing “March Grandioso” over and over.
Once the game started, we would spend the whole game in the stands, playing pep tunes, playing cheers for the audience to sing along with, and playing the fight song after every touchdown. At halftime, we would go down and perform our show. Sometimes, we would play our spirit show, which is a traditional fan-favorite show that we play every year. Other times, we would play our competition show that we had been preparing for that year. After the show, we would go back to the stands and continue playing pep tunes and cheers until the end of the game, when we would play our school song to close out the night.
This picture in particular came from on of the most anticipated games every year: our game against our rival school, Plano West, also known as Wuck Fest (switch the W and the F to understand why its called that 😉). I took this picture after our halftime show, when we were still getting set up again in the stands. I saw the sun setting in the distance, and even though phones weren’t allowed out in the stands, I thought it was worth the risk to take this picture. Though at first, I only appreciated the sunset in the back, as time went on, I began to appreciate the whole picture, as it captured the whole essence of Friday Night Lights: the band, the crowd, the sunset, and the game all in one picture. I also think that it captured a moment. A moment where I feel everyone in the stadium was thinking of nothing else but what was happening in the stadium at that time. At a time where most students were stressed about school, or college applications, or drama with friends, or whatever other drama comes with being in high school, all these worries seemed to melt away during these football games, and everyone was just enjoying the moment.