After the grinding maw of the media-crafted Ferguson, MO narrative seared the consciousness of America with imagery and footage of African-Americans screaming at the cameras, rioting, looting and making gimme-demands, I want to show you a different view. A view of hard lives in tough neighborhoods made better by four things; guts, determination, hard men and football.

The 2014 College and Professional football season begins this week and though it is, beyond question, America’s Game, our favorite sport, our game, the untold stories of organized ball changing lives is never fully told. Because it is an enduring, always evolving story that is renewed each year. Stories of the depths of sacrifice and struggle; of grit and trial; of strength and overcoming; of brotherhood and failure. Stories that will never be fully plumbed. From privileged suburban backgrounds, to the superbly funded programs in Texas, to the mean streets of the Rust Belt, to playing fields without grass or fresh equipment surrounded by slums to the average high school in an average town nothing builds character like the guts, determination, and the hard men of football.

Dick’s Sporting Goods has chronicled three high school football teams during Hell Week. Three, multi-chapter videos intimately revealing what Hell Week is. The strength of parents you’ll never know. The hard men who run Hell Week and give their lives to using football as their catalyst to change lives. The guts and determination of young men who are, quite often, literally, staring down the barrel of the rest of their lives. Dick’s has given us a passionate look inside some of those stories that never get told. And the Story told in each season’s Chapters refutes the demagogues, the race hustlers and race dividers. “It’s not about how many kids you put into Division One schools; it’s about how many kids whose lives are changed ..”

Martin Luther High School, Philadelphia, PA

Cass Tech High School, Detroit, MI

Station Camp High School, Gallatin, TN

Michael Geer, Author www.finaletrilogy.com,  http://storiesweleftbehind.weebly.com/  contact: geer.michael@gmail.com