When I showed up on September 20, 2013 to photograph a day with the legendary Clairton Bears, they were carrying the longest active winning streak in American high school football. With 66 consecutive wins in a row, the Bears had not lost since September 4, 2009, and the team had a home game winning streak that stretched back to 2005. This is not really a piece about football, it's the story of the heart of a Rust Belt city in Western Pennsylvania's sleepy Mon Valley. It is a record of the power mythology created when brothers, cousins, uncles, fathers, grandfathers even, pass on a tradition as saturated with local legend and importance as the Bears.
Photos, audio and production by Stephanie Strasburg for the Tribune-Review
See more from Pittsburgh photojournalist Stephanie Strasburg at her website here, her blog here, or Instagram here.
