I shot a campaign for a clothing company. We went to Miami, Boston, Austin, SF, and LA. These are the after-hours photos.

Until last November, I’d never been to a football game. During my senior year of high school, our football team won the North Carolina 4A State Championships — the highest honors in NC’s high school sports. I couldn’t have cared less. In college at Berkeley, I can’t tell you how many times I heard about “The Play”, in which Berkeley scores a winning touchdown in the final seconds of the 1982 big game against Stanford as Stanford’s marching band took to the field to celebrate. I yawned each and every time. The first year I lived in New York, the Giants won the Super Bowl. I almost went to the ticker-tape parade, but the thought of having to navigate mobs of football fans outweighed the appeal of ticker-tape. I just hate football. At least I used to.

On Thanksgiving, I drove to New Jersey to shoot Don Bosco Prep School play St. Joseph’s for Nike. Although it’s difficult to rank, Don Bosco is considered by many to be the best high school football team in the country. One of their sophomores, Jabrill Peppers (18), is all but certain to go pro and is being heralded as the greatest athlete to ever come from that part of Jersey. I think he scored four touchdowns in their 45th consecutive win that day. Although I still don’t totally appreciate the game, I loved the spectacle and the different stories and emotions that spiral around high school football. All of which was further contextualized by an feature article about Don Bosco’s team in last week’s New Yorker. It’s a good read, though not your traditional underdog story. Altogether, Don Bosco made me not hate football. Go Ironmen.