Jesse Rieser’s best photograph: footballers say goodbye to the game

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/sep/19/jesse-rieser-best-photograph-school-football-farewell-phoenix-arizona

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Football was everything to me in my teenage years. My father and grandfather played, so there was never any question that I would. But when I was offered football scholarships, I turned them down to study the arts. Coming back 20 years later to shoot the game I gave up for photography gave me a rush of nostalgia.

This shot is of the Vikings, a high-school team in Phoenix, Arizona. I chose this school because it was like the one I attended, with the same vast array of social, economic and ethnic backgrounds. I spent the whole season with the Vikings, getting to know the boys and their families. I realised how much the game meant to them – and how much it still means to me.

This was taken during the warm-up for the final home game of the season, known as seniors’ night. It was the last time they were putting on the pads and playing in front of fans, friends and families. It was pure pageantry: mothers brought flowers and walked the players on. Fathers embraced their sons when the pads came off. Playing football requires a military level of dedication, from parents as much as players, and this was a celebration of that.

You can see the teams squaring up to each other. They got into formation, sang their school chants, tried to psych out their opponents. But it wasn’t just about intimidation. This also helped to solidify team identity, building the bonds that can mean the difference between victory and loss.

There’s a dark side to the game that encourages explosive aggression and lavishes praise on players

For many of the young men, football offered a sense of identity and belonging they might not find in later life. In today’s political climate, watching kids unite across class and racial divides was especially powerful. But it was also deeply sad. In a school like this, maybe one or two would go on to play football at college, and probably none would play in the national league. This wasn’t just goodbye to high-school football, it was goodbye to the game itself.

American football has become a source of controversy, some of it justifiable. Criticism of the kind of masculinity it encourages are legitimate. There’s a dark side to the game that encourages explosive aggression and lavishes praise on players, making them think they’re untouchable. But it’s also one of the few spaces where young men can express emotion. I saw these boys broken, weeping in their fathers’ arms, being vulnerable in public in a way society rarely allows.

There has also been a focus on “locker room talk” since the tapes of President Trump leaked, which I think is deeply unfair to locker rooms. These young men were more culturally aware and had higher emotional IQs than my peers and I had at their age. Football might encourage machismo, but it also instils a sense of responsibility not to let team or school down.

And the Colin Kaepernick debacle has politicised a game many of us thought was beyond politics. People have rallied behind the idea that taking a knee during the national anthem is somehow un-American. It’s completely ridiculous. As someone who loves the game and loves my country, it’s heartbreaking to see it become yet another source of division.

I think the game will weather those storms, but its future is still under threat. In the last few years, we’ve learned more about football’s impacts on players’ health. It isn’t just the sheer force of collisions. It’s the repetitive nature of the physical trauma. I’ve had shoulder surgery twice, hip surgery, my left knee is going to have to be replaced and my back is ruined. I’m 38, but my body and mind feel older than they should.

The more stories I’ve read, the more times I have experienced the long-term effects of the game, the more I’ve realised football won’t be something I pass down to my children. This was a farewell for the players – and a farewell for me.

Jesse Rieser’s CV

Born: Springfield, Missouri, 1980.

Studied: “Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, Arizona State University.”

Influences: “Nadav Kander has an incredible range and I love Martin Parr’s humour and observational prowess.”

Low point: “After the great recession when the phone stopped ringing.”

High point: “After the great recession when the phone stopped ringing! It gave me the time to pursue the art side of my career, forcing me to reinvent myself.”