About the photos: This is a story about kids, and kids speak a common language— social media. We chose to tell this story through their medium, so they could be a part of the process as it unfolded. In most cases, the photos are not captioned. Additional

The Denver Post Second of a two-part series

commerce city » T yler Gallegos still felt they were brothers, even though they were no longer teammates, so the suspended senior went to senior night. Until that sobering moment when he was told he must pay admission to watch. So he left beforeAdamsCity’s final home football game, his old pickup truck rumbling into the night.

Mauricio Hernandez stayed. He, too, was suspended for making poor offfield decisions and admitted he didn’t really want to watch a game he desperately wanted to play.

“But I had to be there for my brothers,” Mauricio said.

Brothers. Brick by brick, the Adams City Eagles attempted to build a brotherhood this fall, fittingly calling themselves the “Brick Squad.” An old brick was their symbol, carried proudlywherever they went, be it a pep rally or the Friday night sideline. After big victories, players would hold it aloft in the locker room.

But by the final home game, it would sit in a window sill in the field house, untouched.

AdamsCity began the season by snapping a 58-game losing streak and racing to a 4-1 start, matching the team’s win total from the previous eight seasons. At a struggling school— stuck with the state’s “turnaround” status for poor academic performance— the football team had long been a symbol of apathy.

School administrators targeted football as a vehicle to lead a school revival,

change the culture and show what was possible. If the state’s worst football program could be changed, and along the way lift spirits and show the rewards of teamwork, it would be a boon to everyone.

“These kids have things going on in their lives that are great, they just don’t understandwhat greatness is,” said the team’s first-year coach, 56year-old Dan Jajczyk. “They don’t understand what success is. That’s what we have to teach them.”

The Denver Post spent this past fall with the team to chronicle the lessons of discipline, accountability and brotherhood Jajczyk tried to instill in a group of kids in need of a leader.

The team captain, junior offensive guard Juan Zazueta, gravitated toward Jajczyk’s father-figure approach and quickly cemented himself as the Eagles’ leader. But the lessons didn’t stick with everyone. Adams City started with seven seniors and ended the season with four. The program’s demons were hard to shake.

“I don’t know if it’s a generational thing, don’t know if it’s a cultural thing, but for some reason when things get hard around here they are used to throwing in the towel,” said Aaron Phillips, anAdamsCity assistant coach and the school’s dropout counselor. “That’s what we are trying to change.”

And now, here theywere on senior night — a season and team frayed, still searching for hope.

Beginning of the end

A slight twitch was like a light switch.

Zazuetamoved ever so slightly out of his crouch, and the referee catapulted the yellow flag high into the October night. False start. It was as if all the season’s brightness went away, right then.

Next came the wayward snap and a quarterback sack, followed by two thwarted runs. It was fourth-and-31 — and itwas the first drive of the Eagles’ first league game, against Thompson Valley. Punt. Touchdown. Punt. Touchdown. Tears welled in the disbelieving eyes of Adams City players. Everything felt so different aweek earlier. Now everything began to feel so agonizingly familiar. How did they get here? Six days earlier, the Eagles were fresh off their fourth win of the season, this one thanks to an unlikely game-winning field goal.

On that Saturday, several players showed up late to practice — and a handful of them didn’t even showup at all. Jajczyk (pronounced JAY-sick) was beginning to fully understand just how tough it was to change a culture. He ripped into his team.

“We’re not talking about you being great football players,” he said, his voice booming but calm.“That’s coming. What I’m talking about is how you come together to commit to one another and commit to what we’re doing here. That’s concerning me.”

He pointed to running back Antonio Scott, who rushed for 204 yards a day earlier in the Eagles’ fourth victory. Scott was only a few minutes late to practice, but Jajczyk wanted him setting an example.

“We gave you 32 carries. And you show up late to practice? Because why? Because you think you can just do whatever you want to do?” Scott: “No, Coach.” Jajczyk: “But you do. You don’t even showup for practicewith your cleats on.”

Then, turning back to the room, he said: “Now, I’m not picking on Antonio to pick on Antonio. I could look around this room and get eight to 10 of you on that. We stood on that field for 15, 20 minutes waiting for everybody who showed up late. We can’t lie to one another. We’re all we’ve got. When you make a commitment to someone, you’ve got to live up to that commitment. You find a way to make it on time.”

For all the momentum of a 4-1 start, the ghosts of seasons past weren’t going to be so easily vanquished.

Coach Jajczyk, who saw so much of his own teenage vulnerability in his players, had spent weeks teaching them to believe. He taught them how to believe.

And on the field against Thompson Valley, Zazueta sure believed, even with Adams City trailing 13-0. Zazueta spotted a teammate stomping angrily off the field and grabbed him by the back of the head and yelled: “We’re not the same Adams City, bro! We’ve changed, and no one can take that away from us! Nobody ever thought we would win four games! We did that! We’re never going back to the way it was!”

Joseph Gonzalez demonstrated the Eagles’ newfound fight.

The junior linebacker sprained his ankle so badly on this night he had to be helped off the field. But he couldn’t stand the thought of standing on the sideline. He had done landscaping work for a teacher in the offseason just so he could buy his first pair of new cleats and not have to wear hand-me-downs.

So Gonzalez grimaced through pain and tears and talked his way back onto the field. When Jajczyk noticed Gonzalez limping heavily in the second half, the coach sent in a backup. Gonzalez waived the sub back to the sideline. Darn it if he didn’t think he could still play. Jajczyk had to burn a timeout to finally get Gonzalez off the field.

“I’m not letting you get hurt, son,” Jajczyk said. “We care too much about you.”

Their character might have been as solid as a brick. But the season, man, it was beginning to crumble.

With the 46-12 loss, Adams City fell to 4-2.

A week later, the Eagles lost 44-6 to GreeleyWest.

But Jajczyk, this magic maker, had his Eagles still believing. He knew they needed a goal to chase, so he got them talking again about the playoffs, about a path to get the needed power points for a postsea- son berth. With a win at Longmont, they’d be 5-3, assured of their first nonlosing season in a decade. And they’d be very much alive in the playoff hunt. AdamsCity? Playoffs? Impossible. The Eagles flewaround at practice that week sharp and efficient. The energy was infectious.

And then, another distraction.

Circle of trust

A few weeks earlier, two days before Adams City’s first league game, Mauricio Hernandez strolled through a hallway at school with a grin swallowing his face. Starting quarterback Aaron Helbok was sick and was forced to miss practice, so Hernandezwas about to get his shot.

The gangly, 5-foot-7 kid hadn’t played much, but that didn’t limit his confidence.

“This ismy chance to showwhat I can do,” he said.

But the very next day, on Thursday, Hernandezwas perched on one knee in the middle of the field, his hand resting on his helmet. His teammates circled around him, the wind whipping around this makeshift ring of fire. Here they were again, deciding the fate of a brother.

In an attempt to keep kids eligible, Jajczyk required each player to turn in weekly grade sheets from teachers — slips that helped him keep tabs on which players were struggling in which class.

Hernandez knew he had a low grade in one class. He knewthiswas his chance to play. What was so wrong about altering his grade on the slip for Coach?

Well, Jajczyk found out. And so, herewasHernandez, forced to enter the circle and tell the brotherhood what he had done.

“What do you think your punishment should be, Mauricio?” asked Gonzalez, the gritty linebacker who quickly made it known he believed Hernandez should be gone. Hernandez lifted his head.

“Honestly, you guys told me if I (bleeped) up again, you’d kick me off,” said Hernandez, who had been punished previously for skipping practice. “I don’t know what to tell you guys. I finally thought I was going to get a chance to start, and I didn’t want to lose it. I’d rather be benched than mess up your whole season, because you guys have worked too hard for this.”

This scene was surreal— teenage teammates calmly policing one another in the name of a brotherhood that didn’t even exist weeks earlier.

Zazueta, who had learned responsibility by helping raise his two younger brothers, told the backup quarterback he was hurt by his selfish act— but, as captain, he favored showing mercy. Teammates were divided on what to do, but they were unified in this makeshift democratic process.

Thesewere the lessons Jajczykwas teaching. The coach didn’t believe in simply booting troubled players to the curb. Astruggling kid, without the support of his team, could only “dig a deeper hole,” he said.

“Everybody makes mistakes and needs, time after time, to be forgiv-