As the fall sports season comes to a close, a cold reality begins to take it’s toll on some SHS seniors as they play their last games in an SHS uniform.

Senior football players, Ben Miller and Jake Hemphill, are just a couple of these Cards who are having to face this reality.

“It was a bittersweet feeling,” Miller said. “Getting up for the practices in the morning back in the summertime, it sucked, but we got through it, when the season started, it just flew by.”

According to Miller, he’ll have a hard time detaching from the brotherhood that he built with the other football players as well as being able to go out on the field with them on Friday nights.

Miller says that he does not plan to continue on with football after high school, but instead plans to enlist in the United States Army.

Like Miller, Hemphill does not have plans to continue on with football in the future, but instead plans to enlist in the United States Marine corps.

According to Hemphill, when the clock ran out in the 4th quarter of his last high school football game ever, his emotions were indescribable.

“You really can’t describe it until it happens to you,” Hemphill said. “It’s the weirdest feeling because you’re never going to get to play football again, which has been my ‘norm’ for 10 years now. But it was a good run. I had a good time.”

Although both players do not have any plans to continue on with football in the future, Hemphill says that he loved every moment of his high school football career, and Miller says that football taught him that anything is possible if you put in the work and the time.

While Hemphill still has one season left on the swim team, Miller is completely done with SHS athletics, and according to him, the four years flew by.

“You cannot take it for granted…,” Miller said. “There’s always going to be up and down days, but when it’s over it’s over and there’s nothing you can do about it. You can’t stop time so you might as well enjoy it while you’re there.”