Going to a Vestavia football game is not just about football. It’s all the community coming together on one night with one purpose: to cheer on the Rebels. I see people in their 90s, moms with babies, middle school students, and little kids who think, “One day maybe I’ll become a football player. Maybe I’ll get to be a majorette. Maybe I can play the trombone in the band.” No one is worried about who’s doing what tomorrow or who is voting for who. We are all together. It’s community in the truest sense of the word.

It’s something I don’t want to give up even though I’m shooting  SEC Football now. Vestavia got me started. The people I meet—football players, students in the band, kids on the track, teachers, administrators—give me great hope in the future of America.

-Photographer Karen Askins