Must Win: A Season of Survival for a Town and Its Team

Must Win: A Season of Survival for a Town and Its Team by Jubera, Drew. paperback edition. ISBN: 9781250035806.

Nestled amid cotton, pine, and swamps, the Deep South outpost of Valdosta, Georgia, has long drawn pilgrims from across the country to the home of the Wildcats, the winningest high school football team in America. Christened by national media as "Title Town, USA," Valdosta has thrived on the continuity of dominance: sons still play in front of fathers and grandfathers, creased men in pickups still offer steak dinners as a reward for gridiron glory, and Friday nights in the 11,000-seat stadium known as Death Valley still hold a central role in the towns social fabric. Now that place is in peril. As much as Valdosta is a romantic symbol of traditional American values, things are changing here just as they are in small towns everywhere. In Must Win, author Drew Jubera goes inside the countrys most famous high school football team to chronicle its dramatic 2010 season, a quest by a program thats down but not out to regain past glory for both the team and the town it represents. This town, this school, and these people have been rocked by forces that have hit the entire country, but theyre a long way from giving up. They still believe in the power of a game to overcome all. With a new coach, a new optimism, and a kaleidoscopic cast that includes an aspiring rapper, a beekeepers son, the best athlete in the state, and the heir to a pro legacy cut short by a crack dealers bullet, these Wildcats have been given one more chance. Must Win is the American story written across a bright green playing field.