This is a schmaltz story. SI and ESPN do these all the time. They are meant to tug at the heartstrings and create an emotional response. That said, they normally do just that and are awesome.
Dirk tried to copy this type of schmaltz, even getting the extra editing/formatting for the article. But, he doesn't have the feel for it. He tries to give the basic story form that's given in any feel good story: 1) Present the real time issue: Last game for a school 2) Flashback to the beginning of the issue 3) Present the conflict/challenge that the protagonists are facing 4) How did the protagonists resolve it.
Dirk can't give the cohesive story. One minute he talks about the present kid's injury, then jumps to the football history of LHF, to consolidation history, to a road trip, to enrollment history, to farming improvements, to decreased number of kids, to the number of schools having football, to Chuck Hagel playing basketball (seriously, why is this in here??), to a retired coach buying a farm, but not living there, back to the long road trip that really isn't talked about before, followed by rival towns consolidating, back to the road trip, mentioning NE is a fly-over state, now back to the history of LHF football, a nice bit on the cooperation of the Lindsay Manufacturing plant helping the town (as long as the townsfolk do menial labor for them), now to the legacy LHF players at the last LHF home game, back to the old fundraisers, and it goes on and on....jumping from timeline to timeline, without a true narrative progression.