Before the Lights Took Over

Before the lights took over, there was just a sky going orange and a team quietly getting ready for it.

That's the part most people never see — the stretch where the field is still soft in the last of the daylight, the cleats are just going on, and nobody's watching yet. Then the sun drops, the lights click on overhead, and the whole night changes shape.

I wanted a way to hold onto the whole arc of it, not just the highlights everyone already expects — the walk-out, the noise, the kickoff, the crowd that shows up every single week whether the team is winning or not.