;)
click to enlarge.
This is not the trophy that the Barrow Whalers football team had hoped to take home to Barrow. This is the State Runner-Up 2011-2012 trophy. They wanted to take home the State Championship trophy. I wanted them to, too. Badly.
Instead, Nikiski, a team that the Whalers had previously beaten, took that trophy home.
Still, the Whalers accomplished something that had never been accomplished before. They are the first Barrow Whaler Football team ever to go to state - and they won their division championship.
That's North Slope Borough Mayor Edward Itta, who presented the trophy to them, standing with them and he told them the same thing. On the left is assistant coach Brian Houston.
I took quite a few pictures at the game, but other than to grab this, I haven't looked at them yet. I suspect my very best picture(s) will not be of the action - although I hope I got a couple of decent ones there - but of the emotion and tears at the end.
If I should publish one or more pictures of these tears on the printed page, and I suspect I will, do not be embarassed, Whalers. The tears you shed today did not come from weakness. If you had been weak, you would not have fought on this field in the first place. If you had been weak, you would not have cared enough to have shed tears. These were tears brought on by strong desire, passion, hard effort, hard work and struggle.
As painful as they were, it is good that you could shed such tears.
And one day, those who follow you in future seasons will take that championship trophy home to Barrow.
I hope I am there to photograph it.