The photo is simple but very powerful, and when Howard football coach Mark Teague came across it online recently, he sent copies to each of his six senior players.
The picture is of an empty football stadium, the lights beaming down on the field, with one sentence written across the top: "The hardest look back that every athlete eventually has to make."
Like countless other former players, Teague knows from experience just how tough it is to take off the pads a final time and look back at the field where so many memories were made. For the players making up the 14 Chattanooga-area teams that won't make the playoffs, whose seasons end with tonight's games, memories are what they'll leave the stadium with.
"I wanted to show them something that would get their attention and would really make it sink in that this was their last game and they needed to play like it," said Teague, whose Hustlin' Tigers host Signal Mountain in a game with no bearing on the playoffs for either team. Just pride on the line.
"I know what they're going to experience because I remember when I was about to take those pads off for the last time, what went through my mind were the lessons I had learned from coaches and the relationships I had with teammates on the field. It's going to hit them hard when it's over. I know."
Tears are as much a part of high school football as muddy uniforms, and the reality and emotion will hit home sooner for the players whose season will end with the disappointment of not reaching the playoffs. It's especially tough on the ones who have played the game since the pee-wee level. Being told they can no longer be a part of something they have loved and been involved in for so many years can be tough to accept.
"I've been dreading it all week," said Howard senior defensive end and receiver Johnny Pendergrass, who has played football since he was 5 years old. "It started to hit me last Saturday when I realized this would be the last week of practice for me. I never thought I'd miss practice, but I'm going to now.
"My sophomore year I remember some of our seniors were walking around the stadium, not wanting to leave yet, and they were crying. I asked them why they were crying and they said I'd understand when I was a senior. I'm already preparing myself that I'll probably start crying even when we come out for warm-ups."
I respect any teenager willing to sacrifice his free time this day and age to put in the work it takes to play football, but especially for the ones who will step on the field tonight with nothing more at stake than the satisfaction of finishing the job they started. Not just this season, but that they've been working for for years.
"I think the thing I don't even want to think about it is just taking off that uniform for the last time," said Hustlin' Tigers linebacker/tight end Alex Jackson. "My routine before the game is to kneel in the end zone before we go out on the field and pray for everybody to stay safe. After that I'll play as hard as I can and have fun with my teammates, and hopefully we'll end with a win.
"After that, I really don't know what I'll do, and I don't want to think about it yet."
Contact Stephen Hargis at shargis@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6293.