TRONA, Calif. _ Only nine kids show up for football practice on a brutal afternoon in August, the sun lingering stubbornly over this desert town, keeping the temperature in triple digits.
Tugging on shoulder pads and helmets in a cramped locker room, the players hold their chatter to a minimum, cleats ticking across the concrete floor as they head outside to a field that is barren because not a blade of grass grows at the edge of Death Valley. And it seems like the wind blows constantly here, pushing waves of dust across the landscape.
The coach, dressed in jeans and work boots, his arms heavily tattooed, calls for a few laps before stretching.
"How we feeling?" Richard Ancira barks. "Ready to work?"
Football has never been easy at Trona High.
At least in the old days the school fielded big squads, all those miners' sons eager to prove themselves on Friday night. They forged a reputation for toughness, scratching out wins, even contending for an occasional championship.
That was before the local processing plant laid off hundreds of workers, leaving this remote community littered with abandoned homes, forcing the grocery and furniture store out of business. The Ridgecrest earthquakes last month scared off even more people.
Now the once-powerful Trona program, which downsized to eight-man football a while back, is scrambling to attract enough bodies for its fall schedule.
"Maybe they're too lazy," Bryce Johnson, the star running back, says of classmates who won't play. "Or maybe they don't want to get cut up on the dirt field."
Practice begins near the far end zone, where goal posts lie face down, knocked over by the July temblor and still not fixed. There is an edge to Ancira's voice as he goads his meager roster through hitting drills, knowing everyone must be ready to play on both sides of the ball.
Each tackle brings a burst of dust as players thud against bare earth and scattered rocks. Soon, they are spitting grit from their mouths and picking at bloody elbows. Two of them limp to the sideline, exhausted and cramping, but the workout continues.
"It's hard," the coach says later. "We're trying to keep this thing alive."
