Carroll College (Helena, Mont.) celebrated its fifth NAIA title in six years with a 17-9 victory over defending champ Sioux Falls. John Russell/AP

On Friday night before the national championship game, after the banquet and the meeting with coaches, the entire team gathered in a private dining room at the team hotel. The idea was anyone could go to the front of the room and talk to the team and say whatever they want. A lot of guys came up and told their stories of how they got there. The overall theme of the night was the love we had for each other and the brotherhood that this team has. There was a bunch of us that talked about if won the game, we were going to slide across a big mud puddle.

The photo was taken of me at the 40-yard line, and No. 7 in the photo is Zach Richardson, our starting strong safety. No. 89 is Kyle Moore, a backup tight end. After the photo, I gave Zach a hug. There were a lot of hugs given out that day. I have a couple of tattoos on my arms that you can see in the photos. The word LOVE is on my left arm. My right arm has the word FAITH on it. The words are written in Old English. I have a couple of cousins that went through tough times in their lives and one of my cousins, Trevor Brents, has FAITH on his right arm. That's where I got the idea from. If you look in my left hand, you'll see a hat that says CARROLL COLLEGE: NATIONAL CHAMPIONS. My right hand is totally covered in mud.

Some of my teammates have seen the photo. What did they say about it? They said it was a pretty cool picture.

The Photographer

The man behind this week's cover image is 39-year-old John Russell, who works as a contract photographer for the Associated Press and is the team photographer for the NHL's Nashville Predators. Russell lives in Franklin, Ky., and based in Nashville. He also shot the NAIA championship games in 2004 and 2005. Below, Russell describes his photograph.

Honestly, the shot was the last frame on my card. The celebration had started a couple of minutes before that and the Carroll players were going crazy. I noticed the guys running and sliding on the center of the field and I took off toward there. Obviously, I was in the mud and I was already messy from guys running out of bounds all game. Mud was flying everywhere. I wanted to get close to the guys sliding on the field and tried to get to a low angle for the shot.

That's when Brandon came at me. He slid and then leaned back like you see him in the photo. I was crouching a little when I took the photo -- I shot it as I was running. I would have liked to have framed it a little better. I got a shot of Brandon just as he was hitting the ground sliding and I got the one when he came up on his knees. Then my card was empty.

Generally, from a game like that, the AP wants five or six action photos and some jubilation and dejection shots. I went into the press box and started editing, and sent out the photos about 35 minutes after the game was over. It was one of 11 photos I sent to the AP. You always call to check that they received the images and an editor told me the photos had been tagged as one of the AP's top pictures of the day. I was pretty happy. Now this. It's every sports photographer's dream to get the cover of SI. I thought if I ever made the cover, it might be for a Titans game. I never thought it would be from a game in Savannah, Tenn.

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