Sun series: Edmondson football

Sun follow-up

Still performing like champions

It's a quiet, uneventful afternoon at Edmondson-Westside High, except for one thing. Dante Jones' cell phone won't stop ringing. And ringing.

The big game: Part 1 of 5

A game of contrasts

Next week, millions will tune in to the Super Bowl, attracted as much by an athletic contest as a spectacle saturated with glitz, glamour and excess.

The big game: Part 2 of 5

The promise of a fresh start

At 7:04 a.m. Tuesday, 17-year-old Sterling Jones, bleary-eyed and shirtless, opens the front door of his rowhouse on Wheeler Avenue in West Baltimore. He squints into the sunshine, nods his head, then disappears back inside.

The big game: Part 3 of 5

On the ball off the field

The classic canon, etched forever into football's mythology, states that no team achieves success unless composed of 22 equally important parts. No one man is more vital than the next, no individual player's role more critical to the outcome than another's. If one consistently falters, they all falter.

The big game: Part 4 of 5

Doubts and distractions

It's a lost cause.

The big game: Part 5 of 5

The showdown

Sterling Jones sits on a concrete ledge above rusty metal bleachers at Edmondson-Westside High School watching the school band labor through a last rehearsal before tonight's football game. His feet dangle over the ledge, but it is hardly an image of relaxation. He nervously rocks back and forth.

Rick Maese: Coaching life, not play, is at heart of 'Big Game'

There are images I won't soon forget:

Focusing on Edmondson

It wasn't any great sense of prognostication that led Gerrard Shelley to videotape all the games for the Edmondson Red Storm's championship season. It was just something he'd done every year since 2001.

Edmondson coach: 20 to play in college

Edmondson High football coach Dante Jones, whose team won the Class 2A championship last fall, said "20 players will be playing college football next fall," having received full scholarships or other financial assistance. Among them, Jerome Baskerville, Kyle Jackson, Sterling Jones, Tariq Jones and Dujuan Smith are headed to Bowie State on scholarships, as are Ryun Chandler and Kareem Damon to West Virginia Tech. Coach Jones said Alge Berry, Dionta Cox and Darren Johnson will play at Saint Augustine's in Raleigh, N.C.